Gucci Gucci Coo

by Sue Margolis

  Time and again she had tried to encourage him to talk about what had happened. “I really worry about you bottling up your emotions like this,” she said after he’d received one particularly distressing call. “I know I’m beginning to sound like my mother, but it isn’t healthy.”

  He shrugged and offered her a weak smile. “It’s the way I deal with bad news. I know it’s asking a lot, but can you put up with me when I’m like that?”

  “Of course I can. It’s you I worry about. Not me.” This wasn’t quite true. When he received bad news, she did find his inability to communicate frustrating. She coped by convincing herself that Sam still carried the emotional scars from his parents’ deaths. That was why other people’s tragedy had such an effect on him. She had no doubt, though, that this would change with time.

  The other subject Sam seemed reluctant to talk about was his brother. Ruby still had no idea what he had meant when he said Josh went “off the rails.” She assumed that whatever had happened to his brother had compounded the grief Sam was already feeling about his parents and that was why he found it hard to discuss. Again, she decided he would open up with time.

  AFTER TEA THEY walked into Kew Village and Sam bought her scented yellow freesias, which were her favorite flowers.

  “You know what?” he said. “I think maybe it’s time you introduced me to your mom and dad. They’re such a big part of your life and I’ve never met them. It feels like there’s a part of you I don’t know.”

  “You’re right,” she said, inhaling the sweet scent of the freesias. “I think it is time you met them.”

  It was beginning to get dark, so they decided to head back to the car.

  They couldn’t have taken more than a dozen steps before Sam slowed to a stop. A woman was coming toward them. She had clearly seen Sam and was waving.

  “Hey, Kim,” Sam called out. His tone was friendly enough, but he seemed startled rather than pleasantly surprised to be bumping into her. A moment later they were exchanging double kisses. The woman was tiny with short dark hair and a wide-eyed gamine face. She looked vulnerable, Ruby thought, almost frail. Or maybe it was just her slight build that made her seem that way.

  “You’re a long way from Highgate,” Sam went on. “What are you doing in these parts?”

  “A friend of a friend is having a kids’ birthday party.” American accent. “She invited Todd and Amy. I’ve just been for a walk by the river and now I’m on my way to pick them up.”

  “You went to the river? Alone?” He was clearly alarmed by this. Ruby was confused. Kim wasn’t a child. Why on earth was he so bothered about her taking a stroll by the river on a Sunday afternoon?

  “Sometimes I just have to get out,” she came back, her voice heavy with meaning.

  Sam’s expression softened. “I know you do.” Suddenly he remembered Ruby. “This is Kimberley,” he said, brightening. “She’s a very, very old friend. She’s over here with her two children.”

  “Oh, how long for?” Ruby said, shaking Kimberley’s hand.

  “I’m not too sure,” she said. She cast Sam an anxious look, which Ruby picked up on.

  Kimberley. Kimberley. Why did the name ring a bell? Then she had it. The night when she was in Sam’s car with Buddy and Irene, Irene had asked after a Kimberley.

  “So, Kim, how are you?” Sam said gently, the troubled look returning to his face.

  Kimberley smiled a weak, careworn smile. “Yeah, I’m good. Things seem to have calmed down a little. Look, I really ought to be going. Todd and Amy will be wondering where I am. Nice to have met you, Ruby.” She cast another meaningful glance at Sam. “See ya, Sam.”

  “See ya. And you take care.” He gave her a hug and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “I will.”

  “That all seemed a bit tense,” Ruby whispered as they walked away.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She slipped her arm through his. “Look, if Kimberley is an old girlfriend, that’s OK. You don’t have to be embarrassed. Just so long as she isn’t a new girlfriend, that’s all.” She didn’t believe for one minute that Sam was cheating on her with Kimberley. There had definitely been a tension between them, but it hadn’t seemed in the remotest bit sexual.

  He gave a small laugh. “Kim and I have never dated. We go way back. Her mother is friends with Irene. And she’s married.”

  “So, she’s over here with her husband?”

  “No, he’s back in the States. The marriage hit a pretty rough patch recently and she decided to come over here for a few months to get her head straight and visit family. She’s been through a lot and I’ve been very worried about her. She recently started having panic attacks. That’s why I worry about her going out alone.”

  “I’m sorry she’s having a rough time. She seemed nice.”

  “She is. Kim’s great.”

  They carried on walking.

  “I’m glad you’re going to meet my mum and dad,” Ruby said eventually. “You’re right, they are a big part of my life. But there’s a big part of you I don’t know anything about.”

  “Surely not,” he said, grinning. “You know all my big parts.”

  She whacked him playfully on the shoulder. “I’m serious. I mean your brother. You never talk about him. You’re not in touch. What happened?”

  Sam flinched. “I’ll tell you what happened: drugs. Heroin, to be precise. Josh got into it big time. Had to drop out of law school. He was studying at Yale…”

  “That is so sad. What a terrible waste.”

  She could see by his expression that he was distressed and she didn’t want to make him feel worse by asking more questions. “You know, Sam,” she said, “whenever you feel like really talking, I’m always here.”

  “I know. Thanks. That means a lot to me.” With that he bent down to kiss her.

  By now they had reached Sam’s car. They decided to drive home through Richmond Park. It was almost four and getting dark, but Ruby thought they might just be able to slip in before the park gates shut. When they reached the entrance, the park police had just arrived. Any moment now, they would start directing traffic away from the gates and back onto the main road. Sam managed to get through, along with another car. These days, the speed limit in the park was down to twenty. Everybody found it irritatingly slow. Some drivers got so frustrated that they passed on the narrow road. Almost every time she drove through the park, Ruby saw cars passing. Some barely escaped colliding with the oncoming traffic. Those who didn’t pass kept to just under thirty, hoping they wouldn’t get caught by a speed trap.

  They had been driving for less than a minute—Sam doing about twenty-five—when another vehicle, a monstersized four-wheel-drive, drew level with them on the wrong side of the road. Ruby heard Sam mutter something under his breath as he slowed to let the vehicle pass. But the black Porsche Cayenne—which Ruby couldn’t help thinking would surely have become the modern Gestapo staff car of choice—refused to pass. Each time Sam eased off the gas, it slowed down to match his speed. “What’s going on?” Ruby said, looking at the Porsche, which towered above Sam’s Audi.

  “Just some jerk’s idea of a joke.”

  She could just make out the driver. He was huge and apelike. Sitting behind the wheel he looked like a gorilla driving a toy car. He was also grinning at Sam.

  “Why’s he smiling?” Ruby said. “Does he know you?”

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “I don’t like this,” Ruby said with a shiver. “I’m starting to feel really threatened.”

  “Calm down. He’s just some asshole getting his kicks. He’s looking for a reaction. If we ignore him and do nothing, he’ll get bored.”

  But a full minute went by and the Porsche didn’t pass. The driver was still turning his head every few seconds to grin at Sam. Ruby could see Sam was starting to get rattled because his jaw muscle kept tightening. Then, suddenly, with no warning the monster vehicle swerved violently toward the side o
f Sam’s car.

  “Shit, he’s trying to hit us,” Sam cried, pulling down hard on the wheel to avoid a collision.

  “Right,” she said, reaching for her mobile.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think?” Her voice was shrill, verging on the hysterical. “I’m phoning the police. This guy is a nutter. He could kill us.”

  Then, just as they were approaching Roehampton Gate, the Porsche overtook them, sped out of the park and disappeared. “Bugger,” Ruby said, “I didn’t get his license number, did you?”

  “No, he was going too fast.”

  She put down her phone. There seemed little point in calling the police now. Sam asked her if she was OK.

  “Yes. A bit shaken, that’s all. I can’t believe that bastard got away with doing something so evil. Look, maybe we should phone the police. He might be known to them.”

  “No,” Sam snapped. “Leave it.”

  “But why? Why are you so anxious to let it go? We could have been killed back there.”

  “You’re right, but I know how these things work. You spend hours making a statement to the police and then nothing happens. There’s no point—particularly when we didn’t get his number.”

  But she refused to let it drop. The moment they got back she phoned the local police station. The duty officer immediately asked if she’d got the car’s license number. When she said she hadn’t, the officer said there really wasn’t much they could do.

  “What did I tell you?” Sam said when she got off the phone.

  “You seem almost relieved they didn’t want to know,” she said.

  “Relieved? Why would I be relieved?”

  The next day, feeling a good deal calmer after a night’s sleep, Ruby phoned her mother to tell her that there was a new man in her life. She decided not to mention what had happened in Richmond Park, as it would only scare the living daylights out of her and cause her blood pressure to shoot up.

  “Oh, darling, this is wonderful news,” Ronnie said. “We haven’t seen much of you lately. I guessed you were seeing somebody. Why don’t you bring him for dinner on Saturday? No, scrub that. Dad and I are busy on Saturday. Our local branch of the National Childbirth Trust is having a Protect Your Perineum wine and sushi evening. How’s about Sunday?”

  “Great.” She decided not to ask what happened at a Protect Your Perineum evening, as she was sure the answer would only make her feel queasy.

  “So, Sam’s a doctor, you say?” Ronnie was doing her best to sound relaxed about this fact and failing miserably.

  “Yes. Actually he’s a gynecologist at St. Luke’s.”

  “Reee-ally? And he’s Jewish?”

  “Uh-huh. But he’s not religious. I mean he’s not so much Jewish as Jew-ish.”

  “I see. And is he good looking, this Jew-ish doctor of yours?”

  “Very.”

  “And it’s serious between the two of you?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Wow. So, my beautiful, successful daughter is in love with a handsome Jewish doctor.”

  “And my trendy, liberated mother is suddenly sounding like Golde in Fiddler on the Roof.”

  “I’m sorry, darling, but I can’t help it. I’m beginning to think that there is a whole part of my personality that I may have been repressing for years. Suddenly I seem to be getting in touch with my inner yenta.”

  Ruby swallowed hard. “Mum, please tell me you’re kidding.”

  Ronnie burst out laughing. “Of course I’m kidding. Me, a yenta? As if. Look, I have to ring off. I want to phone Aunty Sylvia and then there’s your grandmother in Marbella. Oooh, and your father’s cousins in Montreal.”

  ON THE GROUNDS that Aunty Sylvia was so in touch with her inner yenta that she would burst into “Sunrise, Sunset” the moment she met Sam, Ruby suggested to Ronnie that it might be best if she wasn’t invited to dinner on Sunday. Ronnie immediately took the point and agreed. In the end, though, she was forced to invite her. Apparently Aunty Sylvia had phoned Ronnie in tears on the Saturday to say she thought that Nigel was seeing another woman. She was in such a state that Ronnie felt she had no option but to invite her to dinner in an effort to cheer her up. “She won’t say anything to embarrass you,” Ronnie assured Ruby. “She’s far too miserable.”

  Food-wise, Ronnie went to a great deal of effort and produced a magnificent chicken-and-mushroom risotto. Phil had bought half a dozen bottles of wine, and judging by the labels, he had spent a fortune.

  Having spent ages on her feet, stirring risotto, Ronnie also managed to look particularly stunning. For once she had dispensed with her hippie, boho look and had opted for something more elegant. She was wearing a long, coffee-colored Ghost shirt over matching wide trousers. Aunty Sylvia kept telling her how fabulous she looked. So did Phil, who could barely take his eyes off her. Several times during dinner he placed a tender hand on hers and asked her if she was feeling all right.

  “Doesn’t it give you a kick seeing your parents so much in love after all these years?” Sam whispered to Ruby at one point. Ruby had to admit that it did.

  For the first half of the evening, Aunty Sylvia’s mood was pretty subdued, and as a result—just as Ronnie had predicted—her behavior toward Sam was impeccable. There was no gushing, no cheek pinching, not a whisper about wedding caterers.

  Then, after she downed two glasses of merlot before the main course, glimpses of her normal self began to appear. As they all sat down to dinner she grabbed a handful of Sam’s cheek and mouthed to Ruby that he was “gorgeous.” Ruby colored up on Sam’s behalf, but he seemed to take the cheek pinching in his stride. It probably reminded him of being with Irene’s mah-jongg cronies, she decided.

  “So, you’re into all this natural childbirth then, Sam?” Aunty Sylvia said, tucking into her risotto: “You know, in my mother’s day, natural childbirth just meant taking your makeup off.” Clearly encouraged by his laughter, she carried on. “Mum was always saying how she was in labor for seventy-two hours with me. Seventy-two hours of agony. I couldn’t imagine doing something I enjoyed for that long.”

  “So, Sam,” Ronnie said, shooting Aunty Sylvia a sour look to indicate she was lowering the tone of the evening, “they say that the episiotomy rates at St. Luke’s are the lowest in the country.”

  “Apparently so,” Sam said. “It’s really good for the hospital’s reputation.”

  Aunty Sylvia put down her knife and fork and grimaced. “Ronnie, please, we’re trying to eat.”

  “Oh, by the way,” Ronnie continued, ignoring her sister, “after dinner I must show you all my belly cast.”

  Aunty Sylvia gave an incredulous blink. “Come again?”

  “I’ve made a plaster cast of my bump.”

  “Now I’ve heard everything,” Aunty Sylvia said, shaking her head.

  “I felt I should pay homage to the way my body has changed to grow this baby.”

  “In other words, you wanted a souvenir,” Aunty Sylvia said.

  “It’s much more than just a souvenir,” Ronnie came back, clearly rattled.

  Phil seemed to sense that the atmosphere between the two women was heating up. He steered the conversation toward Sam. “So, Sam, what are you driving while you’re over here?”

  Sam said he had use of Kristian’s Audi, which had come with the flat.

  “Oh, which model?”

  “The V8.”

  “Lovely car. So is it the 3.7 liter or the 4.2?”

  He had to think. “Er…the 4.2.”

  “And how are you finding the five-speed automatic? I don’t know about you, but this Tiptronic technology just fascinates me.”

  “I can’t say that I know much about it—”

  “Me neither,” a clearly bored Aunty Sylvia broke in. “You know, Sam, I need to pick your brains. I’ve had this brilliant idea for a TV health show.”

  Panic shot across Ronnie’s face. “Sylvia, I’m not sure Sam wants to hear about…”

  “S
ure, I do,” Sam said, brightly—clearly trying to avoid a lengthy treatise on Tiptronics. He turned back to Aunty Sylvia. “Please, go ahead.”

  “Well,” she said, “it’s a quiz show. I’ve called it Name That Specialist.”

  “Oh…kay…”

  “It works like this,” she went on. “You have two families of hypochondriacs competing to identify a doctor from descriptions offered by the quizmaster.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Ruby squeezed Sam’s knee under the table to let him know how much she appreciated him humoring Aunty Sylvia like this.

  “It works like this.” Aunty Sylvia was warming to her theme now. “Imagine I’m the quizmaster, speaking to the panel.”

  “Right,” Sam said.

  “Gawd,” Ronnie groaned, running her hand over her forehead.

  Aunty Sylvia cleared her throat and sat up straight. “OK, everybody, fingers on buzzers. This doctor has consulting rooms in Harley Street and St. John’s Wood. His specialty is gastroenterology. He is considered to be the top man in his field and is famous for his catchphrase: I think we should try you on a proton pump inhibitor. Name that specialist!” Aunty Sylvia started to cackle at her own brilliance. “Is that great TV or is that great TV?”

  “Well…” Sam paused, clearly searching for a diplomatic response. “I think it’s got, er…definite possibilities.”

  “Did you hear that?” Aunty Sylvia said, shooting Ronnie a look of disdain. “Sam said it has possibilities.”

  At this point Phil suggested that Sam might like to come upstairs and see the wireless camera he had fitted in the baby’s nursery. “It’s going to be fantastic for keeping an eye on the baby.”

  Ronnie gave an amused shake of her head and turned to Ruby. “As ever, your father’s got his priorities sorted. We’ve got no furniture for the nursery, no carpet down, but we have a CCTV camera installed.”

  The two men disappeared upstairs. “My little Ruby with a handsome Jewish doctor,” Aunty Sylvia squealed. This time it was Ruby’s cheek she pinched. “Who would have thought?”