Sisteria

by Sue Margolis

  ‘Dad is going to New York,’ Beverley said gently, ‘to see if he and Rebecca can make a go of it, and I need to find out if Tom will still have me.’

  ‘But that means he’ll come to live with us,’ Benny said. ‘Fuck that. I’m not having some strange bloke barging in thinking he can order me about...’

  ‘Benny, calm down and listen,’ Melvin said, reaching into the back seat of the Impala to hug him. ‘I’ll always be your dad. Tom will never take my place in that sense. He’s a kind, intelligent man, Benny. He wouldn’t want to. And I’ll phone every day. Promise. And as soon as I’m settled, the pair of you can come to New York and stay.’

  Two hours later they were still sitting in the steamed-up Impala while Vladimir carried on smoking and - Melvin couldn’t help noticing out of the corner of his eye - intently studying a London A-Z as he waited patiently outside. So his friend really was doing the taxi driver’s Knowledge.

  Finally, after more tears, hugs and the anticipated adolescent recriminations, the family climbed out of the car and said their final and emotion-charged goodbyes to Melvin. The plan was that Beverley would drive the children home in the Passat and Vladimir would follow in the Impala with Melvin, who was still sectioned and technically a fugitive, hidden under blankets on the back seat. There, Vladimir would collect Melvin’s passport and some proper clothes and take him on to Heathrow.

  ***

  Beverley and the children walked across the car park. Still sobbing quietly, Natalie went on ahead. Benny took his mother’s arm.

  ‘If Tom doesn’t want to be with you, Mum, me and Nat’ll look after you. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘’Course I do, sweetheart,’ she said, reaching up to plant a kiss on her son’s cheek. They’d walked no more than a couple of paces when Beverley heard the soft tinkling of small metallic objects landing on asphalt. Benny stopped dead in his tracks and went instantly red.

  ‘What are they?’ Beverley said casually, spotting three of the five fishing weights which had, unknown to her, extracted themselves from the thirty-two-millimetre washer round Benny’s penis and fallen down his trouser leg.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ he blustered, at the same time gathering up the fishing weights. ‘Look like ball bearings. Never seen ’em before.’

  ‘But Benny,’ she said, looking puzzled, ‘maybe it’s my imagination, but it looked to me like they fell down your trouser leg.’

  ‘Did they?’ His red cheeks were now almost purple. He said nothing for a few seconds while he tried to work out what to do next.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he said finally, ‘I remember now. I picked them up the other day while we were doing metalwork at school. Must be a hole in my pocket.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said as she took his arm again and they carried on walking.

  It was several days later, when her mind was clearer, that Beverley finally remembered that Benny hadn’t done metalwork at school since the third year.

  ***

  When they got home, it was Benny, still smarting with humiliation, who checked the answer machine in the hall while his mother and Natalie searched the house for Melvin’s passport. Thirty seconds later, he came away from the phone. ‘Blimey,’ he whispered, sitting down with a thump on the bottom stair.

  Lettice Allard’s message had been a rambling one. She was phoning to inform him of an article which had appeared in that day’s Guardian Women on male circumcision. It explained, as she gushingly précised it, that far from being seen as a primitive mutilation, male circumcision was now regarded as a major aid to women’s health, cervical cancer-wise. Therefore a circumcised knob was becoming an exceedingly cool thing for a man to possess - which was why several of the more politically OK film stars and rock musicians were queuing up for the chop.

  ‘So, anyway,’ she had concluded, ‘I’ve kept it for you, so give me a call, and we can, like, share our thoughts on the whole thing, yeah?’

  It was all Benny could do to stop himself calling Lettice there and then, but he didn’t want to appear too desperate to speak to her. Was he in with a chance after all he had been through, culminating in today’s cosmic embarrassment in front of his mother? Or was he reading too much into Lettice’s words and seemingly suggestive tone? Whichever way he looked at it, there was one central fact: Lettice Allard, who had never phoned him in her life, had rung up to discuss not merely knobs in general, but his in particular.

  He dashed upstairs and proceeded to empty his collection of Homebase washers and spare fishing weights from their hiding place in his ancient piggy bank. Then he opened his window, threw the lot into the bushes below and stuck a single finger up at them in a symbolic gesture of victory.

  ***

  Beverley kept trying Tom’s number until well after eleven, but only got the answer machine.

  ‘Tom, it’s me,’ she said desperately, every time it clicked on. ‘If you’re there, please pick up. I must speak to you.’

  When he didn’t come to the phone, she decided he’d either stopped loving her and never wanted to see her again as long as he lived, or he was genuinely out or away. She hoped and prayed it was the latter.

  In the end, just after midnight, she could fight her exhaustion no longer and fell into a deep sleep in which she dreamt about giving birth to triplets fathered by Ivan the Terrible.

  She woke just after ten. Even if Tom had come home last night, she reasoned, he would have left by now. She rang his production company in Soho. Bronte, his PA, who Beverley had spoken to several times, said he was filming in London all week. Apparently The French Lieutenant’s Woman was finished and he was working on a BT commercial. For the next couple of days he was shooting outdoors, in the piazza in front of St Paul’s Cathedral.

  She spotted the bright lights and white umbrellas from hundreds of yards away. When Beverley arrived on the set, feeling sick with nerves and certain Tom was about to send her packing, he was nowhere to be seen. One of the young runners told her they were taking a break and that Tom had said he was going for a walk.

  ‘How does he seem?’ Beverley asked the lad anxiously.

  ‘Tom? Christ... Been in a stress all morning. You only have to look at him in the wrong tone of voice and he loses it. Some tart giving him a hard time, I reckon.’

  ‘Probably,’ she said, nodding. ‘You’ve no idea where he went, have you?’

  ‘Nah... but last time I saw him he was walking towards the cathedral.’

  He was inside, she knew he was. He would have remembered the afternoon they sat in the Whispering Gallery, her on one side, him on the other, sending daft messages to each ether. He’d gone there to get maudlin. She could feel it.

  By now it had started to drizzle. In a few seconds this turned to great sheets of pelting rain. By the time she reached the cathedral steps her freshly blow-dried hair was plastered to her head and dripping water on to her PVC trenchcoat.

  A few minutes later, she was climbing the wooden spiral staircase which led to the Whispering Gallery. She thanked the Lord she was only five months pregnant and that it was an easy, gentle climb. She couldn’t help noticing how few tourists there were. From time to time, a pair of blubbery American rears would overtake her, but that was about it. Maybe the others had decided to stay on their coaches until the rain stopped.

  By now she was beginning to shiver - partly because she was cold and wet and partly because her anxiety about Tom rejecting her was now verging on full-scale panic.

  After a couple of minutes she could feel herself starting to feel sick. She stopped, gripped the handrail and took several slow, deep breaths.

  ‘You all right, my dear?’

  Beverley turned round to see a concerned looking sixty-something woman in sensible shoes and a long plastic mac. Behind her were a dozen or so more macs, with leather shoulder bags and Sureshots. Beverley decided they were on an outing from some Women’s Institute in the Home Counties.

  ‘Oh, yes, fine,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant, that’s all. Felt a bit
faint.’

  ‘Look, maybe you should sit down and put your head between your knees,’ the woman said. ‘Or perhaps you need some fresh air. I’ll come back down with you if you like.’

  “That’s really sweet of you,’ Beverley smiled, ‘but I’ll be fine in a minute. Honest.’

  ‘All right. If you’re sure,’ the woman said reluctantly.

  Beverley nodded and the Women’s Institute party carried on climbing. Each of the women smiled at her as they passed.

  Finally Beverley reached the doorway to the Whispering Gallery. She hovered outside for the best part of a minute. Then she stepped on to the narrow stone walkway which formed the huge circular gallery. The WI ladies were already there, giggling like schoolgirls as they tried to speak to one another from one side to the other. When they saw Beverley, they waved.

  Because the place was virtually empty, she spotted Tom immediately. He was on the opposite side, leaning on the wrought-iron railing and staring down into the well of the cathedral. She started to walk towards him. His mind was clearly miles away and he didn’t see her coming.

  ‘Hi,’ she said softly, tapping him on the shoulder.

  His head spun round towards her. There were black shadows under his eyes. He clearly hadn’t shaved since she walked out on him.

  ‘Beverley?’ There was a question in his voice, as if he doubted his eyes.

  ‘I was when I last looked,’ she said, laughing nervously.

  ‘No, I mean, what are you doing here?’ he said. ‘Are you OK? There’s nothing wrong with the baby, is there?’

  She shook her head, but no words would come. She leaned on the railing and began looking down.

  ‘How far to the bottom, do you think?’ she said eventually.

  ‘Beverley,’ he said quietly, ignoring the question, ‘please tell me. Why have you come here? What’s going on?’

  She bit her bottom lip and suggested they sat down. They moved back to the stone bench which ran round the gallery. Then, in a voice that never went above a soft murmur, she blurted out everything that had happened over the last few days.

  ‘So,’ she said finally, ‘I was just wondering... well, more hoping, really... if... if you would take me back. You know, if we could be together, like you said, and bring up the baby.’

  ‘What?’ he gasped softly.

  ‘Right,’ she said, ‘it’s OK. You don’t have to say any more. I can understand you wouldn’t want me back after the way I treated you. It was unforgivable. I’ll go.’

  She started to get up, but Tom grabbed her arm and pulled her back down.

  ‘Beverley,’ he said, putting his hand under her chin and moving her face towards his, ‘of course I want you back. How could I not want you back? I love you, you dope.’

  ‘You do?’ she said, looking up at him and blinking.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, running his hand over her wet hair. As he took her in his arms and kissed her she could feel her relief segue into almighty, entrail-melting lust.

  ‘I just want you to know,’ he said when they’d finally finished, ‘that I’m crazy about you, Beverley. I love you and worship you. You are the most important person in my life and I will do anything and everything to make you happy. Beverley, I want to marry you, bring up this child we made and grow old with you. Just promise me you’ll never, ever leave me again.’

  ‘I promise,’ she whispered, and he started kissing her again.

  Beverley heard it first, the unmistakable sound of people clapping. It was tentative and muted, the kind of polite applause which might follow a piano recital held for a select few in a grand drawing room. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the gallery.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said, pulling away from Tom. She turned her head and saw the group of beaming Women’s Institute ladies clapping, waving handkerchiefs and giving them the thumbs-up.

  Tom looked at the women and then back at Beverley. He was completely bemused. His long blinks of myopic confusion made him look like a contestant in the International Mr Totally Bewildered Competition.

  ‘Sorry, Beverley,’ he said, blinking again, ‘am I missing something here?’

  ’Tom, it’s the Whispering bloody Gallery,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘You mean those women over there... they actually... ?’

  His humiliation was such that it rendered him incapable of adding the words ‘heard everything’. Instead he touched his ear.

  She nodded.

  He turned scarlet. Then, almost immediately, he started to grin.

  ‘Oh, sod it,’ he chuckled. ‘Who cares? Come here, let’s give ’em a real thrill.’

  He threw the ladies a quick smile and a wave. Then he pulled Beverley towards him again. Very quietly, and in great detail, he began telling her about all the filthy things he was planning to do to her the moment he got her home.

  Postscript

  Hi-ya! magazine, October.

  RECENTLY VOTED THE NATION’S MOST POPULAR TV PRESENTER, BEVERLEY LITTLESTONE AND HER DIRECTOR PARTNER TOM JAGO OPEN THE DOORS TO THEIR UNPRETENTIOUS FINCHLEY HOME AND INVITE US TO HELP THEM CELEBRATE THE BIRTH OF THEIR BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER ROSIE...

  Beverley Littlestone, currently attracting audiences of over five million to her emotion-packed daytime talk show Beverley! introduced the newest addition to her family last week when some hundred couples attended a buffet catered by the ebullient super-chef, Gordon Ramsay.

  Little Rosie, who was born at London’s Portland Hospital two months ago weighing in at a bonny eight pounds three ounces, looked almost edible in Baby Kenzo - ‘A present from her godmother, Rochelle,’ Beverley was quick to point out. ‘I would never buy a baby anything so extravagant.’

  Svelte and stunning in an off-the-shoulder black evening dress by Princess Diana’s favourite designer, Caroline Walker, Beverley rarely left Tom’s side all evening. Although both have been through difficult times in the past, the pair seemed blissfully happy as they took turns holding Rosie and mingled with an eclectic mix of celebrities from the worlds of TV and showbusiness. Chief among these were Lord Lloyd Webber and Beverley’s younger sister Naomi Gold. She shocked the nation back in April by announcing her departure from television to ‘pursue other interests’.

  Naomi and her partner, the world-renowned occultist Fallopia Trebetherick, now divide their time between their witchcraft supplies shop in Cornwall and their £5 million retreat in Tuscany, which once belonged to Mussolini. At the glittering star-studded launch of the Venice Beach, California, branch of their shop last week, the couple, who seem besotted, were still laughing off press reports that Naomi had been sacked by Channel 6.

  Naomi and Fallopia will tie the knot at Hallowe’en with a traditional Wiccan wedding ceremony in Tintagel.

  The highlight of the evening came when Tom paid fulsome and affectionate tributes to Beverley and his new daughter, whom he described as ‘the two most important people in my life’. Then, standing up amid rapturous applause, Beverley made a short speech, during which she saluted four more members of her family.

  First to receive lavish praise for her determination and courage was her daughter Natalie, who recently abandoned Judaism and was baptised at a moving ceremony at All Saints, Barnet. A dazzling eighteen-year-old beauty with a list of showbusiness names queuing to romance her, she only had eyes for her long-standing boyfriend, and fellow Christian, Duncan Newbegin.

  The second person to be honoured was Beverley’s son, Benny, who is now studying for A levels having gained six A stars and three As in his GCSE exams. Benny attended the bash with his gorgeous and cerebral girlfriend, Lettice Allard, on his arm.

  The final, and no less heartfelt, toasts went to Naomi and her bride-to-be, and to Beverley’s mother Queenie, who is also about to be married. Queenie recently announced her engagement to Leonard Shupak. The couple met at the Sidney and Bessie Hamburger Jewish Day Centre which they both attend. They are planning a spring wedding and are currently flat-hunting in Cliftonville.

&n
bsp; Queenie spent much of the evening encouraging people to buy tickets for a quiz night to be held in December in aid of the Finchley and District Mothers of Jewish Lesbians Support Group.

  Sadly, Beverley’s estranged husband Melvin, with whom she maintains a warm relationship, was unable to attend the bash owing to work commitments.

  He is reported to be romancing New York bagel billionaire Rebecca Fludd, who recently separated from her husband Brad. Sources close to the couple, who were sweethearts when they were at university in Nottingham twenty years ago, before Melvin left to pursue his career in the pharmaceutical industry, say the pair are inseparable and plan to marry. The same sources report that Melvin has accepted a position on the board of Tower of Bagel, which would put him at around number fifty on America’s list of richest people.

  After dinner, Lord Lloyd Webber led guests into the marquee, enchantingly lit with thousands of fairy lights, where he took up his position at the piano to accompany Mr Shupak as he sang ‘Always’.

  Tom and Beverley then opened the dancing.

  Copyright

  PUBLISHED BY APOSTROPHE BOOKS LTD

  www.apostrophebooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-908556-03-5

  First published in Great Britain in 1999 by Headline Publishing

  Digital edition 2011 by Apostrophe Books Ltd

  Copyright © Sue Margolis 1999 & 2011

  The author has asserted her ownership of the electronic rights and her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.