Sisteria

by Sue Margolis

  ‘Look, don’t laugh,’ Naomi had said a couple of afternoons ago when they met at Brown’s, to discuss when and where the first insemination should take place. ‘Fallopia Trebetherick specialises in boosting women’s fertility. Di, Demi, Fergie, the Grimaldi women - they all called her in when they wanted to get pregnant. She flies all over the world.’

  ‘On her broomstick, I presume,’ Beverley said, only half joking.

  ‘No, usually by private jet. Look, Fallopia’s a wonderfully successful healer and natural therapist... OK, I admit it, she’s into a bit of magic.’

  ‘So I’m right, she is a witch then.’ By now Beverley’s voice had developed a distinctly nervous edge.

  ‘All right, all right, she is a witch, but an exceedingly fashionable one.’

  ‘Who happens to have this amazing knack of getting buns in covens.’

  ‘Funneee... Look, Bev, Fallopia Trebetherick doesn’t come cheap, but I think we should use her. I mean, you’re forty-two now and you may not find it so easy to get pregnant. Look, I know I should have discussed it with you first, but I rang her yesterday. Anyway, she said if we wanted to turn the insemination into a full-scale pagan ceremony she’d be happy to preside.’

  ‘And of course you said thanks, but no thanks,’ Beverley said.

  ‘Not as such... Look, she said because it’s me she’ll do it for half her normal fee. You have no idea, this is the most amazing coup, Bev. I mean, Fallopia is always booked up for months ahead. Says she’s got some tart out of EastEnders pencilled in that night, but she’ll put her off. Anyway, I thought a bit of incense and meditation might relax us all - you know, get us into the right spiritual mood. I mean, what harm can it do?’

  ‘Oh, not a lot, I suppose,’ Beverley said casually. ‘So long as we’re not bothered about me ending up spread-eagled naked and dead on top of some tombstone in Highgate Cemetery.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Bev. You’re over-reacting. Look, witchcraft, or Wicca as Fallopia prefers to call it, has nothing to do with devils and demons and pervy satanic rites - it’s all about worshipping nature and using herbal remedies and a bit of magic to help people. Just see it as a form of complementary therapy - a bit like acupuncture.’

  ‘So where’s she from, this Trebetherick woman - Cornwall?’

  ‘No, Cricklewood. The pops always refer to her as the Cricklewood Crone.’

  ‘Great,’ Beverley said, imagining some bent, warty woman with no teeth, and filthy matted hair, wearing a necklace of dried bat’s intestines round her neck. ‘So in no time she’ll have me howling at the moon with a dead toad and a head of garlic shoved up inside me? I tell you, Naomi, I’ll be a Wicca basket case by the time I get pregnant.’

  ‘Now you’re being daft. Look, I’ve told you, the royals use her...’

  ‘And I take it Tom’s OK about ejaculating into a jar while this woman stands over him chanting and sprinkling him with newt droppings?’ Beverley asked.

  ‘Fallopia has assured me the whole thing will be perfectly respectable and dignified. I haven’t actually mentioned it to Tom yet, but I’m sure once she’s explained everything to him, he won’t have a problem with it. He knows how much becoming a mother means to me. I know he’ll do anything I ask him... Meanwhile, Fallopia said she’d send you the instructions. And there are some crystals coming too. If you keep them in your pocket, they’ll help balance your chakras. Please say yes, Bev, please. It really would mean such a lot to me.’

  Beverley said nothing for a few moments.

  ‘You’re bonkers,’ she chuckled eventually. ‘You do know that, don’t you? Totally bonkers.’

  Naomi grinned.

  ‘So you’ll do it then?’

  ‘OK, but on the strict understanding that if we get a whiff of anything remotely pervy, we leg it. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Just before they left Brown’s, Naomi reached across the sofa they’d been sharing and hugged her sister.

  ‘I still can’t believe you’ve agreed to carry my baby for me, Bev,’ she said, leaning her head on Beverley’s shoulder. ‘Every time I think about it, I have to pinch myself. You will never know how grateful I am and how happy you’ve made me. Never. Thanks, Bev. Thank you so much.’

  Beverley patted her sister’s back and pulled away gently from her embrace.

  ‘It’s OK, my pleasure,’ she said, smiling and wiping a tear from Naomi’s cheek.

  ***

  Back in her kitchen, Beverley was reading the last page of Fallopia’s Iinstructions. Shaking her head and chuckling, she got the pages together, tore them in half and half again, went over to the swing bin and threw them and the crystals in it. She’d never needed bits of old plant or crystals to get pregnant in the past and doubted very much she needed them now.

  There was one thing she did need now, and that was confirmation that Fallopia Trebetherick wasn’t completely barmy. Despite Naomi’s, not to mention Rochelle’s, assurances that there was nothing remotely sinister or demonic about the woman and that alternative-therapy-wise she was the most fashionable thing since ginseng, Beverley wanted to make certain for herself. She went back to the bin and pulled out the torn-up instruction sheets. Fallopia’s address and telephone number had been printed at the top of the covering letter. Having located the relevant piece of paper, she took it with her to the phone.

  She picked up the receiver and hesitated as she tried to decide if half eight was too early to phone. Even though it was a weekday, she thought it would be more polite to wait until it was something to nine. At eight thirty-five precisely, she picked up the phone again.

  When the voice at the other end answered with a curt ‘Yup,’ Beverley was convinced she’d dialled some military establishment by mistake. She was just about to apologise and put the phone down when the voice demanded to know who was calling. Feeling too intimidated to refuse, Beverley announced herself.

  ‘Ah, yes... Littlestone, B., Mrs,’ the voice boomed down the phone, instantly causing Beverley to move the receiver several inches away from her ear. ‘Got you down for a Ritual Seeding, on the ninth of the eleventh, at seventeen hundred hours.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Beverley said, her confusion and terror growing by the second, ‘I wanted to speak to Fallopia, Fallopia Trebetherick.’

  ‘She speaks,’ the woman barked impatiently.

  ‘What... sorry... you are Fallopia?’

  ‘Good God,’ the woman muttered, ‘I’ve got a right whisky alpha lima lima yankee here.’

  ‘’Fraid I’m not quite with you...’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  Beverley heard Fallopia tut.

  ‘Now then,’ she said, ‘let’s start again. You are Beverley Littlestone. I am Fallopia Trebetherick. Now what can I do for you?’

  ***

  It took Fallopia less than five minutes to deliver her clipped, succinct summary of what the Ritual Seeding ceremony would involve.

  ‘It’s done with complete decorum,’ she said finally. ‘All I do is a bit of ceremonial during which I raise the cone of magic and call upon the goddess to put your ovaries and uterus on red alert. The rest you do in a private room while I carry on chanting outside.’

  Having decided the woman was batty, but probably harmless, Beverley’s curiosity about Fallopia’s distinctly unwitchlike manner began to get the better of her. She had expected if not a cackling hag with warts on her nose, a dotty, merry soul. Fallopia, however, seemed to resemble the hockey mistress from hell. Finally Beverley plucked up the courage to ask about her background.

  It came as no surprise to Beverley to discover the woman had spent twenty years as a flight lieutenant in the RAF.

  ‘Stationed down in Cornwall, at RAF St Mawgan,’ she explained when Beverley asked her how she became a witch. ‘Fell out of a Sea King on a rescue, and me coccyx went for a burton. Kept giving me gyp on and off for months. Went straight to the MO, of course. He could do bugger all. Ruddy shower, doctors, if you ask me. Finally thi
ngs got so bad that they invalided me out. Then one day I took a drive to Totnes, and while I was having a nose around, I happened to notice a postcard in a newsagent’s window placed by one of these alternative healer types. Thought I might as well give it a go. She sorted me out with a few herbal remedies in a matter of days. Turned out she also practised the old religion. Of course, I told her it was a load of old codswallop, but she insisted I went along and met the members of her coven. Nothing like I expected. Jolly decent bunch. Very down to earth. Very soon, my healer friend took me under her wing and became my mentor - taught me everything I know about healing and magic. Then after she died on me, I discovered I had a bit of a gift when it came to helping women conceive, and the rest you know.’

  ***

  They were saying cheerio when Beverley realized she hadn’t asked Fallopia where she was planning to hold the ceremony. Fallopia insisted on doing it outdoors.

  ‘Much better ch’i - that’s energy flow to you - than you get inside. Forget anywhere public. Someone might spot me and your sister together and tip off one of the papers. Before you know it, Bob’s your whatnot and we spend the next six months repelling a whole load of tabloid flak. Your back garden will do.’

  ***

  The moment she put the phone down, Beverley realized their back garden would be out of the question. Although she would have to let Melvin know when the insemination was happening, she couldn’t bear the thought of it taking place at their house. It would be desperately hurtful to Melvin - a bit like having an affair and using their bed. What was more, if he found out that a witch was popping round beforehand to perform a quick pre-insemination spell over her nether regions, he’d have every right to think she and Naomi had gone off their mutual chumps.

  Beverley’s thoughts were interrupted by the front door slamming. Suspecting Natalie’s moods were in full swing once again and that she’d left for school in another of her strops, she went into the living room, pulled back the net curtains and looked out of the window. Disappearing into the distance, his school bag slung over his shoulder, was Benny. In all the four years he’d been at secondary school, he’d never left without kissing her goodbye. For the life of her she couldn’t think what she’d done to offend him.

  She walked back into the kitchen, her thoughts returning to the conversation with Fallopia, and the garden question. It took her no more than a few seconds to come up with the answer. Mitchell and Rochelle were off to Aruba the week after next, the day before the insemination. She would ask to borrow their house and garden.

  Once again she picked up the phone.

  ***

  ‘No problem,’ Rochelle said groggily. It was now well after nine, but Beverley had clearly woken her up. ‘I’ll leave you the keys. Can’t believe I’m going to miss meeting Fallopia Trebetherick and the gorgeous Tom. You’ll get to meet him before the insemination though, won’t you?’

  ‘Probably not. Fallopia can only do the ninth and he’s in Newcastle filming until the eighth. Goes against my better judgement, but I guess I’m just going to have to take Naomi’s word for it that he’s a wonderful man and that he will make an equally wonderful father.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt he will. Naomi may be a lot of things, but she’s not stupid. I’m sure she’ll have made a wise choice in Tom. Stop worrying.’

  ***

  But she couldn’t help it. She was starting to worry about so much lately.

  For a start there was Melvin. He was clearly still having trouble coming to terms with the surrogacy plan. He was permanently tense and preoccupied. She was also aware that he wasn’t sleeping. What was more, although she had nothing to go on other than a gut feeling, she couldn’t help thinking he was planning or hatching something behind her back, but every time she put it to him that he was keeping something from her, he denied it. Last night he’d actually woken her with his tossing and turning. Each time she’d rolled over to his side of the bed, put her arms round his middle and begged him to talk to her.

  ‘Look, Mel, I know you’re finding this thing hard to deal with, but we have to keep talking. Please don’t shut me out. You seem to be hurting so much and it just makes me feel more and more guilty.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Honest,’ he said without turning over. ‘I just need time to come to terms with it, that’s all. There’s nothing going on. Honest.’

  ‘Turn over and say that.’

  He turned to face her.

  ‘I promise I’m not planning anything,’ he said, knowing full well that the advertisements for the Russian snoring devices - part two of his grand strategy to scupper the surrogacy deal - would start appearing in newspapers and magazines from next week.

  ‘Now go to sleep.’

  He kissed her briefly on the lips.

  As they lay side by side in the dark, Melvin’s thoughts turned to Rebecca Fludd, shikseh goddess and bagel mogul. These days he found himself fantasising even more than usual about what might have been. The moment he fell asleep he began to dream. He was standing on the deck of a cruise liner. At the same time this was also the Nottingham University students’ union bar. He was surrounded by a large group of male students, wearing shirts with long pointy collars and Kevin Keegan haircuts. They were all drinking pints of Shipstone’s bitter. Through the crowd, he could see Rebecca. She was playing deck quoits with bagels. Suddenly she turned towards him and smiled. The people disappeared as if by magic. Rebecca dropped her bagels and they began running towards each other in slow motion. They were laughing. Their arms were outstretched. She was wearing a dress made of flowing sheer cotton. He could see her breasts bobbing up and down as she ran barefoot along the wooden deck. Finally he reached her. His heart pounding fit to burst, he put his arms round her, pulled her towards him and kissed her slowly and passionately on the mouth. It was a few seconds later, as they pulled apart, that he realized to his horror that Rebecca had sprouted a droopy moustache and tinted glasses. He had been tonguing Vlad the Impala.

  Beverley, still in worry mode, was thinking about Natalie’s new boyfriend. Melvin had decided it was wonderful news that Natalie was seeing a Christian boy - the more religious the better in his opinion (Melvin never lost an opportunity to stick two fingers up at his dead father, who had been orthodox as well as autocratic). Beverley, on the other hand, was continuing to have serious doubts about the relationship.

  As she drifted off to sleep, she could see the boy standing in front of her. In her mind’s eye he wasn’t merely Christian, but a wild-eyed, wiry-haired zealot and missionary who looked like he belonged to some eccentric American Christian sect. He would force Natalie to convert, marry her and then drag her off to live among his people in the wilds of Pennsylvania.

  A minute later she was dreaming properly. It was ten years from now and she was walking down Golders Green Road with a dozen Amish grandchildren in tow.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Queen of Shadows, Queen of Light,’ Fallopia chanted loudly, her voice taking on a theatrical tremble, ‘Isis, Brighid, lady bright, Hathor of the darksome night, swell my magic power tonight.’

  Fallopia had broken off from her task of sweeping away evil spirits from the magic circle and was standing stock still in the November darkness, her arms and her broomstick raised heavenwards.

  ‘Do you mind telling me what this woman is on?’ Beverley whispered to Naomi.

  ‘God knows, but isn’t it magical?’ Naomi enthused, still unable to believe her luck at having poached Fallopia from the EastEnders tart.

  ‘If you like,’ Beverley replied.

  ‘If you ask me,’ she continued, pulling up her coat collar and adjusting the chaplet of cow horns perched uncomfortably on her head, ‘the woman’s a newt’s eye short of a curse.’

  Despite her military gait and ramrod posture, Fallopia had clearly shrunk since her days in the RAF. She couldn’t have been more than five foot three. She was also fat, with enormous breasts. As she moved, these swung back and forth, apparently untethered, beneath her w
hite robe, which was tied with dressing gown cord at what passed for her waist.

  After consecrating the ground by sprinkling it with salt water taken from her cauldron, she knelt down and, with some difficulty because the breeze kept blowing out her matches, began lighting the white candles which formed the perimeter of the magic circle. She then announced that she was ready to proceed with the ceremony.

  ‘But what about Tom?’ Naomi asked anxiously. ‘It’s only just gone half five. He’s probably stuck in traffic. Can’t we just hang on for a bit?’

  ‘Sorry, no can do,’ Fallopia barked. ‘I’m due at Highgrove at nine. HRH has got another bull with brewer’s droop. If Mr Jago chooses to be late on parade I’m afraid that’s his problem. But worry not, Beverley’s fertility is our main concern and it is her we must concentrate upon. Now then, let us be silent while I call up the cone of magic.’

  ‘I can’t imagine where he’s got to,’ Naomi whispered while Fallopia began making a sign of a pentagram in the air. ‘He promised me faithfully he would leave the office at four. I tell you, if he’s playing silly buggers and is about to let me down, I’ll bloody kill him.’

  Beverley had to confess she felt relieved at the thought of Tom not turning up. It wasn’t that she didn’t want the insemination to go ahead. She did, but she found the idea of meeting Tom for the first time under these bizarre circumstances embarrassing in the extreme.

  They returned their attention to Fallopia. She was now prancing and gambolling, Isadora Duncan-style, round the magic circle, a tree branch wand in one hand, a couple of smoking joss sticks in the other. Furthermore, she was doing it completely naked.

  Backlit by the candles, Fallopia, with her bubble perm and dimpled, cellulite-filled limbs, looked like an outsize wood nymph, Beverley thought. But what struck predominantly was the sight of her breasts swaying back and forth across the enormous belly like two animated, fleshy ciabattas.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Beverley giggled, ‘I wondered what she meant when she said she performed these seeding ceremonies “sky clad”.’