“Try it!” Sandra bounced on the mattress which was patterned in blue, matching the carpet.
Norman sat down next to Sandra. The familiar perfume, of which he had been deprived for the three weeks that she had been away, tickled his nostrils.
“It was wickedly expensive…” Sandra said lying back and pressing her hands into the buttoned softness. “…But oh, the bliss!”
Norman turned to look at her, cream and vulnerable, in the brown silk lining of her coat, her hair corn among the blue flowers, her fine leather boots extending over the edge of the bed. For one brief moment he thought of Aunty Kitty’s where he should have been dining. Then he obeyed the bells in his head and the fire in his veins and the insistence of his bones and covered Sandra’s body with his.
“Strange about Norman,” Josh said.
They were preparing for bed.
“I expect he forgot,” Sarah said. “Went to the cinema or something.”
“Not Norman.” Josh watched as Sarah put the Victorian bangle he had bought her on the dressing-table, took off her sweater, shook out the long hair which fell almost to her breasts.
“It was nice of you to go to all that trouble…” Sarah looked at him. “…for mother, for Friday night. She really appreciated it.”
“I enjoyed it. Preparing for the Sabbath. All those little customs repeated over and over down the years. Handed on from generation to generation. At home there was only Christmas and you can’t get much mileage out of a turkey. It makes you feel good.”
“There’s another custom,” Josh said.
“What’s that?”
“For Friday night.”
He took the cappel, the white satin skull-cap, with which he had covered his head for the benediction before the meal and the grace after it, and threw it on to the bed.
“It’s what my great-grandfather used to do in Cracow when he wanted to make love to my great-grandmother.”
He looked into Sarah’s laughing eyes and held out his arms for her.
Fourteen
Kitty looked out of the window at the rain falling steadily on the stationary traffic and tried to take herself back to the warm, dry air of Eilat, where she had looked down from her balcony at the pellucid water. With the last of her summer clothes, which she had put away in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, the gates had closed on what had been a memorable fortnight, and her thoughts, which she had collected up from the Canyon of the Inscriptions (the belladonna and the tumbleweed), the mystic colours of the desert stones and the heroic battlements of Masada, took their place again in her everyday mind where they were directed towards Rachel’s wedding. Addie had com-mented, grudgingly, on her suntan; Beatty, when she had gone to visit Leon and to take them the hand-painted ashtray, that the rest had done her good. Kitty knew that neither the rest nor the sunshine had been wholly responsible for the new dimension she had brought back with her from Israel, together with the dried up desert rose, which she put in a tiny container of water on the sitting-room mantelpiece above the Magicoal fire.
She had noticed the change in herself on the journey home, in the aeroplane. She had not been afraid. No, that was not true, She had been afraid but not with the blind fear, the panic which had taken hold of her on the journey to Tel Aviv. She had sat by the window, and she had looked out of it. She had kept her seat belt fastened but paid no attention to the fact that the other passengers walked up and down in the aisles. The seat next to her was empty but in it – taking strength from his calmness, as she had on the ladder in the Canyon of the Inscriptions and in the cable car – she had imagined the enigmatic Maurice Morgenthau. Maurice had given her strength. He had endowed her with a confidence for which, accustomed to relying on Sydney, she had previously never felt the need, and which she had since put to good use in the manner of Rachel’s wedding dress.
Hettie Klopman had hardly waited for her to unpack. The opening salvos on the telephone had concerned the postcard, for which she thanked Kitty calling her ‘dear’, although they had only met once, commenting how nice it must have been in Eilat, although Herbert never went anywhere but the Hilton where the manager knew him and where they always had a suite on the Jaffa side of the hotel.
“Herbert wants to take Rachel to Paris to see the new collections,” Hettie said. “To choose her wedding dress. When is she free?”
It had taken Kitty by surprise. Paris had so many more exciting ideas, Hettie said, and being in the fashion business Herbert had the entrée to all the best houses. He wanted Rachel to have something special – Nina Ricci or Dior – something with a long train which would be held by Patrick’s three girl cousins from Leeds. Kitty had felt the ground shift beneath her as the river of Hettie Klopman’s loquacity flowed on over flowers and colour schemes and how everything must match or be complementary – she hated to see chuppahs which hadn’t been properly thought out, all bits and bobs – and would Kitty come over some time to discuss menus with the caterer, there’d be so much to do later on that it was better to get ahead, and she and Herbert were going on a Caribbean cruise in March, so it would be wise to deal with as much as possible straight away.
Kitty guessed that the menus and the flowers – for which it was certainly premature – were to camouflage the edict of the wedding dress for which Hettie, primed she guessed by Patrick, had expected opposition, but Kitty was not deflected. She had jumped from a boulder into the Canyon of the Inscriptions, climbed a perpendicular ladder to get out of it, hung in a cable car suspended high above the Judean desert, she was not going to be cowed by Hettie Klopman, to let her walk all over her.
She told Hettie about Cupid of Hendon and Rika Snowman who had made Carol’s wedding dress, and that she had already been approached about Rachel’s. Kitty would not hurt her friend’s feelings for the world. Hettie Klopman had been non-committal. She was only the adjutant. As soon as he came home from his office Herbert was on the phone. “Give us the nachas, Kitty,” he said. “We haven’t got a daughter of our own…” Kitty did not yield.
She thanked Herbert politely for his generous gesture but stuck to her guns and Rika Snowman where she was going now with Rachel for whom she was waiting and from whom she had had no support. The dress in which she was to be married was a matter of indifference to Rachel who would happily have worn her jeans. She considered it as much a waste of money as everything else to do with the wedding, which threatened to engulf her, and in any case could spare only one day before she went back to college for her final term before the exams. Kitty had spoken to Hettie since, but the atmosphere had been less cordial. She had invited her future mechutanista to accompany them to Cupid of Hendon but Hettie had a previous engagement. It was no way to go on Kitty thought as, mesmerised by the slanting rain, she waited for Rachel who, with ingenious excuses of disasters which had befallen her, was invariably late.
Norman stood on the black and white floor of the Mayfair flower shop waiting to be served. Through an open doorway he could see three girls in checked overalls – whom he presumed were assistants – transfixed by animated conversation and what he assumed was their coffee break. One leaned, smoking, against a wall, another was putting the finishing touches to a wreath, and the third sat on a desk, swinging her legs, as she blew into a steaming mug round which she had clasped both hands. Norman didn’t mind waiting. He didn’t mind anything. He had pains in his liver, his lungs and his midriff which were palpably the manifestations of love. He loved Sandra to whom as the most insignificant token of his passionate and consuming devotion he was going to send a magnificent bouquet of flowers. Aunt Kitty had told him where to get them when he had telephoned to apologise for not turning up on the Friday night when she had come back from her holiday. The best flower shop in London, Norman had said. He had not told Aunty Kitty why.
Standing patiently among the rigid gladioli, mauve and pink and yellow, among the shaggy, overblown football heads of chrysanthemums – a superior version of those he had regularly bought from the man outside
the station for his mother, when she was alive, for New Year – among the spray carnations and the tiger lilies, the daffodils, and the snowdrops which had been forced, he allowed himself, as he did in his idle moments and some which were not, by way of a small treat, to go back to that Friday night which, although it was already becoming confused with other magical nights of the past ten days, he would always remember.
“Try it,” Sandra had said, sitting down on the bed. The inflexion in her voice, the words, whose invitation he could not be sure if he had read correctly, were still in his ears and would remain there. He had sunk on to the blue patterned mattress beside her, and before he knew it, almost despite himself, as if another Norman were in charge, he had taken her, fur coat and all, into his arms. She had not objected. How foolish he had been, how short-sighted, to think that she would. Nothing in his thoughts, however muddled, had prepared him for her response. She had been warm, giving, loving, everywhere. Compared with his brief experiences on the back seat of his car with Della, it was as if he had never known a woman before. He had not. At first, the love they had made had been short and urgent. Later it had been long and slow. It had to do with mouths and limbs and secret places to which Sandra invited him, and his discovery that her skin went on forever and was flawless as a sun-tanned body stocking, and with caressing words he did not know he knew, and with waiting and with patience, and with ardour and with eagerness, and with passion and with cries and cataclysms and with the desire to weep with happiness and with content. Afterwards he had fallen asleep and Sandra had covered him with her fur coat.
When he awoke she was in the sitting room at the record-player. His feet made no sound on the pale carpet which was shedding its tufts. At the touch of a knob the raucous voice of Piaf crashed like a road drill into every corner of the room, filling it, into every crevice of Norman’s body. ‘Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien…’ Sandra turned towards him. ‘Ni le bien, qu’on m’a fait…’ They flowed, amoeba-like, together. ‘…ni le mal, tout ça m’est bien égal…’ Her hair was beneath his chin, soft golden, ‘Non, rien de rien…’, he put his lips to it, ‘…non, je ne regrette rien…’ Their bodies swayed as one, keeping time to the music, ‘Car ma vie, car mes joies, aujourd’hui, ça commence avec toi…’ Norman wanted the night to go on for ever, for it never to stop. Later they had both grown tired and it was the first time – although now too late – that Norman had thought of Aunty Kitty. Although she had asked him for dinner since, he had not accepted. He had been too busy with Sandra, making the most of their Elysian nights in the flat, in which Norman helped her with the finishing touches – Sandra had bought scarlet sheets for the king-sized bed – before Hilton and Milton came back to their new home.
“Can I help you, sir?” A voice broke into his dreams.
“Some flowers.” He wanted them to wrap up the whole shop.
“What did you have in mind?”
Sandra’s body. He would never tire of it.
The girl in her checked overall waited.
Norman looked around at the lengths and shapes, smelled the fusion of perfumes from the palette of colours which surrounded him.
“Did you want them delivered?”
Norman nodded.
“Local?”
“No.” He gave Sandra’s address.
“We charge five pounds for delivery and two-fifty for gift wrapping – that’s if you want them in a box with ribbon and cellophane – and then there’s your VAT on top of that.”
Norman stared at the girl. He seemed to have spent almost ten pounds without having bought anything. He was not accustomed to flower shops. He pointed to some white roses. Sandra, he thought, would like white roses to echo the furniture in her sitting-room.
“A large bunch of those!”
“Those ones are three pounds…” the girl said.
“That’ll be fine.” Norman reached for his wallet.
She drew a single stem from the bucket. “…each!”
“I got stuck in the lift!” Rachel said.
Kitty had given her up as a bad job and started to make an apple cake for Norman who at last was coming for dinner. If anything happened it happened to Rachel who seemed to have been born a victim. She missed trains and appointments (I didn’t realise it was Tuesday yesterday), discovered split seams and microscopic holes in any garments which she bought, necessitating their return to the shop, and seemed to be the prime target for any pickpocket (my chequebook and my cheque card), flasher and molester who happened to be around. She lost keys (there was a hole in my pocket) and lecture notes (I must have left them on the train and they weren’t even mine), and to lend her the car was to invite attention from every bumper denter (it wasn’t my fault!) paint scratcher and aerial bender on the road. In the borrowed council flat she was supposed to be keeping a low profile as it should not have been sub-let. Already, mistaking the floor, and expecting Patrick to answer, she had rung the bell, peremptorily, of the identical flat above, provoking the wrath of an irate night-shift worker roused from his sleep, and when unloading her gear had parked Kitty’s car in the place sacred to the Chairman – who turned out to be an extremely officious woman – of the Residents’ Association, who wanted to know exactly what Rachel was doing in the building at all.
In the purple padded coat which came almost to her ankles which were encased in shocking-pink leg warmers, with the green and crimson scarf she had knitted threatening to strangle her, the whole topped by the burning bush of her outlandish hair, she looked, Kitty thought, as if she had just arrived, not from Mornington Crescent, but from some fringe town in the Himalayas or the Yukon.
“I was expecting you at ten,” Kitty said, arranging slices of apple neatly in her tin.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Rachel said. “That lift’s always breaking down. Luckily there were some children around who heard the alarm. It took them three quarters of an hour to find the caretaker. They thought it was a great joke.” She looked at her watch. “I’m meeting this girl at the library at twelve.”
“Rachel,” Kitty said. “How can you expect to choose a dress for the most important day of your life in half-an-hour?”
“How long does it take?’ Rachel said, opening the fridge. “You’ll have to hang on a bit because I haven’t had any breakfast.”
“Where are you going for your honeymoon?” Rika Snowman asked Rachel who sat in her padded coat on the gilt sofa between herself and Kitty as they leafed through back numbers of bridal magazines.
“Haven’t thought about it.”
“She’s too busy with exams.” Kitty excused her.
“There’s time.” Rika turned back a couple of pages. “This is the lace I was telling you about, but not this neckline – you need more bosom for that – more of a mandarin…” She encircled her own neck. “…and a little stand-up collar, we could edge it with tiny white flowers…”
Rachel stared at the headless bride sketched on the glossy page.
“Got anywhere to live yet?” Rika asked. “You should see Bernice’s…” Her own daughter had married a chartered surveyor in the summer, and set up home in Kenton. “…it’s like a little palace. They’ve got a through lounge-room with a picture window, a downstairs toilet, a nice little garden, not too big, but large enough for children – please God – to play, and a beautiful kitchen with everything in it – they were very lucky, the people they bought it from emigrated to Canada – dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer. The bedrooms are small but you can’t have everything. No garage, but a carport, which is all you need, and five minutes from the station for Howard…”
“I think Rachel’s in a hurry, Rika,” Kitty said, jabbing a finger at a bride in a dress whose hem dipped in eight handkerchief points. She couldn’t picture Rachel with a tumble dryer, and a downstairs toilet, and a carport in Kenton, with Patrick going off neatly every morning to the station.
“They’re always in a hurry,” Rika said equably. “I’ll show you some materials so th
at Rachel can get an idea, then we can take a few measurements and see how we go. Have you thought about bridesmaids?”
“Debbie and Lisa,” Kitty said, “Carol’s two little ones.”
Hettie Klopman wanted Patrick’s three girl cousins from Leeds to attend her, whose ages, according to Rachel, ranged from thirteen to sixteen and who were by no means dainty. Rachel had said ‘no way!’ and Kitty had left her to deal with her future mother-in-law.
“There’s a lovely new organdie nobody’s even seen yet, for bridesmaids,” Rika said, searching on a table among swatches of material, “with a little print – like a Liberty print almost – and it comes in a very pale mauve or a very pale yellow or a very pale…”
Rachel was looking at her watch.
“Let’s get Rachel settled,” Kitty said.
“All right, darling.” Rika took a heavy baton of white material from against the wall and unwound a length.
“This is the lace. I got it last year and was keeping it for someone special. You can’t even get it any more. They can’t do it for the money. Feel the give in it…” She draped it across the bosom of Rachel’s purple padded coat. “Take your clothes off sweetheart and I’ll show you some others. We’ve got a beautiful moiré, not a white, more of a parchment, and a watered silk – but that might be more than you want to go to, Siek’s gone crazy – she might not like the lace. I don’t want to force her. She’s got to wear it, haven’t you, darling? We want you to be happy with it.”
Rachel, refusing the privacy of a cubicle, removed her clothes. Beneath the purple coat was a cardigan of Patrick’s which came down to her knees. She pulled it over her head to reveal another of her own which Kitty had knitted for her while she was still at school, and which should now, by rights, have been in a jumble sale.
“Okay?” Rachel said.
“We can’t take measures like that,” Rika said. “It’s got to fit like a skin,” she smoothed a hand over her own hips. “It falls to the body, laces does, that’s the beauty of it…”
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