by Sue Margolis
“Well,” he said when she’d finished, “seems like you managed to make the right decision without me. If nobody stands to get hurt, why would you turn down that kind of money? I mean, it would be a total no-brainer.”
She asked him what he knew about Katherine Martinez.
“K-Mart?” he said with a soft laugh.
“That’s what you call her? K-Mart?”
He shrugged. “Everybody loathes her. I worked with her on a movie a few years ago. It’s the usual Hollywood diva deal: she swans onto the set four hours late. The director’s too intimidated to say anything. She’s too snooty to socialize when she’s not filming and spends her time holed up in her trailer with her sushi chef and tarot reader.” Just then his mobile went. It was the chap selling the Harley.
“OK,” he said, looking at his watch. “I can probably just make it in an hour.” He flipped the top of his phone and stood up. “Gotta run, principessa. I’ll e-mail to let you know when I’ll be back.”
“Albert, hang on. We really do need to t—” But he was already out the door.
As soon as Albert left, she phoned Estelle to ask her if she would mind hanging on to Jake for the week. Stephanie was feeling desperately guilty about how much the poor little mite had been shunted around since Christmas, but if she was going to take the Sidney Doucette job, asking her mother to look after Jake was her only option. Of course Estelle couldn’t have been more delighted. “Listen, darling,” Estelle said after Stephanie had said how guilty she felt about neglecting Jake, “you’re trying to make a go of your career. That’s never easy for married women, let alone single parents. Come on, stop beating yourself up. And he’s always with Albert or me and your father. You know how much we all adore him.”
“I know. That makes me feel better.”
“So,” Estelle went on, “how did you get on with Ossie yesterday?”
“Look, what I’m about to tell you is top secret, right?”
“Darling, you know me, my lips are sealed.”
Stephanie told her about being the voice for Katherine Martinez. “So, it’s not a real part, then?” Estelle said, barely disguising her disappointment at not being able to show off at the next Masonic ladies’ night. Then she started to panic and go on about repercussions, although when Stephanie asked her what repercussions there could be, she couldn’t actually think of any. Estelle put Harry on the line, clearly thinking that since he’d been a lawyer his legal brain would be able to think up the repercussions she couldn’t. Harry listened closely and agreed with Stephanie that she probably couldn’t do herself any harm by taking the job. “On the other hand, this Sidney Doucette character is obviously as bent as a twelve-bob note. I don’t think you can trust him. If you ask me, a thousand quid a week seems far too good to be true. Just make sure you get it in writing.”
“Of course you’ll have it in writing,” Ossie assured her when she phoned to tell him she was accepting the offer. “But how come you’ve changed your mind?” She told him she still wasn’t happy about it, but she couldn’t walk away from the money.
Ossie told her that the show’s director wanted to start recording on Monday. Apparently, it was imperative that it was finished that week because the press night had been scheduled for the following Friday and Katherine would need time to practice lip-synching Stephanie’s voice. Until now, in rehearsals she had been using CDs of the real Peggy Lee.
Stephanie decided that rather than take the week off from the Park Royal, she would tell them she wasn’t coming back. The Blues Café on the other hand was anxious not to lose her and offered her a month’s sabbatical, which she accepted. She wanted a break and, more important, to spend some time with Jake. Once the recording was over, with the first thousand-pound check in her account, she could afford to take it easy for a bit.
Ossie also told her that she would be expected to sign the same confidentiality agreement that everybody else involved with the project had signed. “Of course,” she said, realizing she’d already told Frank, Albert and her parents. Plus, there was also no way she was about to lie to Cass and Lizzie. But what the heck, she couldn’t keep this thing entirely to herself. She just couldn’t.
“So, are we still on for dinner?” Ossie said. “How’s about Monday night after you’ve finished in the studio?” She had to admit she’d been praying he’d forgotten. “Of course. Wiener schnitzel. Monday’s fine. I’ll look forward to it.”
Naturally, when Estelle had said her lips were sealed, this was only partially true. The moment Stephanie put the phone down from Ossie, she had Lilly on the phone. She then proceeded to have the identical “repercussions” conversation she’d had with her mother.
“So, Gran,” Stephanie said eventually, desperate to change the subject, “how are things with you and Bernard?”
“Fantastic. And you know what? He’s also a wonderful tai chi teacher.” Lilly then launched into an exhaustive and meticulous account of how much more aligned her body had become since Bernard had begun teaching her how to move harmoniously. This in turn was making her feel so much more emotionally centered. Stephanie had to admit that her grandmother was a truly remarkable woman. While the rest of the elderly population seemed happy to totter over the hill into dotage valley, here was Lilly, busy having moments of ecstasy and balancing her chi.
“Anyway,” Lilly went on, “the reason I rang was to say that Bernard’s coming over in an hour or so, and I was wondering if you’d like to meet him.”
“Ah, so, it’s getting serious between you two, then?” Stephanie said. Lilly laughed and offered a cryptic “maybe.”
“I’d love to come,” Stephanie told her. Then she said she was calling in to see Mrs. M., who’d just come out of hospital after her hip replacement, and she’d come on afterward. “But I can’t stay long. I have to be at work by lunchtime.”
Mrs. M. answered the door, her weight resting heavily on a three-pronged aluminum cane. She looked tired and a bit pale, but she insisted that she was in no pain. “See, the limp’s almost gone,” she said as she led Stephanie down the hall. “A bit stiff, that’s all. Just you wait, I’ll be sprinting in a few weeks.”
“Course you will,” Stephanie said brightly, knowing full well that even with her new hip, Mrs. M. would never be able to chase after Jake and that there was no way she could give her back her old job.
“So, how’s my little man? I’ve still got his Christmas present here, you know, all wrapped up. Tell you what, why don’t I come over for a cuppa when I’m feeling a bit better and give it to him then? Do you think he’ll mind waiting?” Stephanie said she was sure he wouldn’t.
On the coffee table in the living room was a dainty bone china coffeepot and matching cups and saucers. Carefully arranged on top of a doily-covered plate were slices of poppyseed cake and Battenberg sponge cake. “Oh, Mrs. M., this looks lovely.”
“My daughter Geraldine did it,” Mrs. M. said. “You just missed her. She popped over to Brent Cross Marks to buy a corselet.” With that she let go of her cane and sat down heavily on the sofa, letting out a breathy oomph as she went.
“These are for you,” Stephanie said, presenting her with a big box of Belgian chocs and a selection of the month’s glossies.
“Ooh, darlin’, you shouldn’t. You really do spoil me. Oh, now then, will you look at that?” She was staring at the front cover of Hello! “Isn’t she a beauty?” How she’d missed it, Stephanie had no idea. There was Katherine Martinez, all strapless red satin, perfectly color-coordinated pout and itty-bitty ski-jump nose. Stephanie read the headline: “Hollywood Legend Katherine Martinez Speaks Candidly from Her Beverly Hills Cottage about Her Upcoming London Stage Debut as Peggy Lee.”
“Mrs. M., do you mind if I just have a glance at this article for a sec?”
“Not at all, darlin’,” she said, passing Stephanie the magazine. “You’re like me. Nothing like a bit of escapism.”
Mrs. M. poured the coffee and Stephanie flicked through the pages of
Hello! Of course, the Beverly Hills cottage turned out to be a sprawling hacienda, which looked like it had been done up by a gay gaucho. But there was no doubt K-Mart looked stunning languorously draped over various bits of antique furniture.
“You can see she’s got that kind of fresh-faced look Peggy Lee had,” Mrs. M. said, sliding a cup of coffee along the table toward Stephanie. “Oh, look, it says her ‘mellifluous velvet voice has been rigorously honed during the last year by daily singing lessons.’ You know, whatever you say about these Hollywood stars and their egos, you have to admire their dedication.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Stephanie said, practically biting into her tongue to stop herself from blurting out the truth.
Lilly had forgotten to mention on the phone that she’d pulled a muscle in her back. Her walking was barely an improvement on Mrs. M.’s.
“I’d just done Step Back to Repulse Monkey,” Lilly explained, “and was about to move into Golden Cock Stands on One Leg, when I felt this sharp pain. It’s already better than it was. I’ll be fine in a few days.”
Stephanie offered to take her to a chiropractor, but Lilly insisted that she was on the mend. As they sat down in the living room to wait for Bernard, Stephanie suggested that Lilly was overdoing the tai chi, but her grandmother wouldn’t hear of it.
“By the way,” Lilly said, “there’s something you need to know about Bernard. I didn’t see any point telling you before because I wasn’t sure until recently that he felt the same way about me as I do about him. The thing is, Bernard isn’t just my tai chi teacher. Years ago, long before I met your grandfather, he and I were an item.”
“You’re kidding.”
Lilly shook her head and explained that they used to go along to the same youth club in Hackney. “He was my first love,” Lilly said wistfully. They had gone out for six years, but when they decided they wanted to get engaged, her parents forbade it because Bernard wasn’t Jewish. “Then he was called up for his national service, we lost touch and eventually I met your granddad, Norman. Don’t get me wrong, I loved your grandfather, but I always carried a torch for Bernard.” By now Stephanie was so moved she had tears in her eyes. She asked Lilly if Bernard ever married. “Yes, but his wife died about ten years ago.”
“Wow, Gran, that’s a bit of a story. So, I take it the spark is still there?”
Lilly laid her hand on Stephanie’s: “Like you wouldn’t believe,” she said.
Even though she knew it wasn’t her grandmother’s style, for some reason Stephanie had gotten it into her head that Bernard would be a tiny, whippety aesthete with a stringy goatee who would sit on the floor in the lotus position drinking herb tea and quoting Zen proverbs. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Bernard Dixon wasn’t remotely whippetlike. He was a great bear of a man with a gentle, open face and hod carrier’s arms. With his trendily cropped gray hair, loose tai chi trousers and T-shirt he also didn’t look a day over sixty.
“Excuse the getup,” he said to Stephanie as they shook hands. “I’ve just come from giving a class.” The voice was big too. There was nothing remotely frail about this man. It occurred to her that Albert would be like this when he got older. The thought was only reinforced when he winked at her and said she was “a real Bobby Dazzler, just like your grandmother.” He offered to make coffee so that Lilly could rest her back, but Lilly wouldn’t hear of it. “You two stay here and get to know each other,” she said.
In the five minutes it took Lilly to make coffee and open a packet of chocolate digestives, Stephanie heard about Bernard’s five grandchildren, the building company he’d set up in the sixties (which his sons now ran), how it took thirty years to become a tai chi grand master (which he now was), how he’d met his wife on a blind date, that she’d died ten years ago from cancer and how, even though he’d loved her to bits, he’d always kept a photograph of Lilly. He took it out of his wallet and handed it to Stephanie. The small black-and-white print was faded and battered. “It’s your grandmother at a Christmas dance. Doesn’t she look beautiful?” Lilly, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen, did indeed look beautiful. Thick, lustrous curls tumbled down over her bare shoulders. Her dark lips formed a perfect bow-shaped pout. “Of course, I had a hand-span waist in those days,” Lilly said, coming in with a tray. “It was the year Bernard got his first job, as a bus conductor.”
“That’s right,” he said, leaping up and taking the tray from her. “And when I was on late shifts you used to spend the entire evening on my bus.”
“The 123 from Ilford to Tottenham.”
“All you ever cost me was a fourpenny ticket,” he said, laughing. “Talk about a cheap date.” He wrapped his arms around her. They looked so incongruous, Stephanie thought: the bear and the little bird. Lilly looked up at him and giggled. “Ooh, I could stay wrapped up in here all winter.” Her head was resting on his chest, which she could barely reach.
“What’s the weather like down there, Titch?” he asked. Lilly pulled away and bashed him affectionately on the arm. If ever a woman was in love, Stephanie thought, then Lilly was.
The three of them sat chatting, mostly about how Lilly was a natural at tai chi. “You know, she’s got such wonderful structure and balance.”
Lilly said that all the years she’d spent dancing must have paid off. Eventually Bernard went into the kitchen to make everybody more coffee.
“You know,” Lilly said, “it’s like we were never apart. And you wouldn’t believe the sex. When Bernard makes love to me, it’s pure magic. That man may be eighty, but he plays me like a violin.”
“Really?” Stephanie said, desperate to be spared any further details of her grandmother’s sexual congress with Bernard. “That’s wonderful …”
“Actually, I’ve been having these—you know …” she had lowered her voice to a whisper, “… multiple moments of ecstasy.” She nodded her head several times as if to underline the statement. Stephanie swallowed hard. “Multiple?” she said, clearing her throat. “Wow, Gran, I’m impressed.”
“And I tell you, we are talking more than two here.”
“More than two?” Stephanie repeated, desperate to change the subject.
“So, do you want to know how many it was?”
“Gran, it’s not really any of my business.”
“OK, if you push me. It was six.”
“You had six multiple moments of ecstasy with Bernard? Blimey! That’s amazing.”
Lilly broke off a small piece of chocolate digestive and put it in her mouth. “Stephanie, Bernard has asked me to live with him.”
“Live with him? God, Gran, it’s a bit soon, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve hardly had any time to get reacquainted.”
“Look, at our age, when something feels right, you don’t waste time.”
Bernard was back now, handing around the mugs. “Your grandmother’s right. We haven’t got our lives stretching out in front of us.”
“I can see that,” Stephanie said. “But I’m worried about you rushing into things.”
“There’s something else,” Lilly said, exchanging an anxious glance with Bernard.
“I know … you’re pregnant.”
“Damn, you guessed,” said Bernard, laughing.
“No, you daft ha’porth,” Lilly said, “but it would mean moving.”
“Out of London, you mean?” Stephanie said.
“Way out.”
“What, to the coast?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Lilly said. Another exchange of glances.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it would be on the coast, all right—the Florida coast.” Stephanie was too stunned to speak.
“But why Florida? What’s wrong with Bournemouth?”
“I’ve been offered a job,” Bernard said. Stephanie swiveled round to face him. “What sort of job?” What she wanted to say was “Who offers jobs to men of eighty?” but she was too polite.
“Teaching tai chi to the elderly in Miami. Old people react be
tter to teachers of their own age. And tai chi isn’t just a martial art, it’s relaxing, it keeps people fit and mobile. The job even comes with a free apartment.”
“And the block’s fabulous,” Lilly said, positively bursting with excitement. “It has two pools. Two pools. Can you imagine? And then there’s all that sun. Imagine waking up every day to blue sky and sun.”
“But you’re not sure?” Stephanie said.
“I’d miss you and my only great-grandson like mad. And I know your mother would never forgive me.”
Bernard admitted that his children were none too pleased about the idea either. “But it’s such a wonderful opportunity. We can’t pass it up.” Stephanie found herself raising objections, such as what Lilly would do if she got ill, had an accident or realized she’d made a mistake.
“They do have hospitals in America,” Lilly said. “And if I’m unhappy, I’ll come home.”
Stephanie still had her doubts, but she was starting to see it from Lilly’s point of view. “Maybe at your age,” she said to them, “it’s time to stop thinking about everybody else. There are planes. We’ll visit.” Then she took Lilly’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Mum will get used to the idea. Just you see.”
Lilly shrugged. “I’m not so sure. Look, I’m really nervous about telling her. I’m frightened she’ll start ranting and raving and putting her foot down. Would you tell her for me?”
“Gran, I think maybe it would be better coming from you.”
“Please.”
Oh great, Stephanie thought, why do I get all the best jobs? “OK, if you really want me to, I’ll tell Mum. No problem.”
Cass was on the phone next. She was disappointed for Stephanie that she hadn’t landed the lead, but she was certain that accepting Sidney Doucette’s offer was the right thing to do. “Blimey, take the money and run. That’s what I say. Plus if Ossie really does feel guilty about all this, he’ll be making an extra effort to look out for something really decent for you. You’re bound to hit the jackpot soon.” She had to rush into a meeting, so they didn’t have time to discuss how the frugal lunch had gone.