Mad

by Chloé Esposito

  I think I will make myself at home here, Beth, I think I will.

  ◆

  “What kind of tea would you like? Earl Grey? Ceylon? Rooibos? Darjeeling? I’ve got some lovely oolong in at the moment, loose leaf, from Tibet?”

  “Erm,” I say. I can’t ask for builder’s or PG Tips.

  “I’ll make us some of the oolong.”

  “Great.”

  I watch Beth’s back disappear into the kitchen. Her hair swishes behind her, a glossy blond mane. She looks like a Barbie doll. Brigitte Bardot. She looks like the new and improved version of me: Alvina Knightly 2.0. It’s not a nice feeling. I sit on the edge of the creamy-white armchair and try not to touch anything in case I get it dirty, keep my distance from the glass-topped coffee table, in case it breaks. There’s a tight feeling in my chest, like someone’s wrapped me up in duct tape; I can’t move my rib cage in or out. I dig my fingernails into the fleshy bits in the palms of my hands and wait for Beth to come back. Sweating. I wonder what she wanted to ask me. I wonder why I am here. . . .

  A cream carpet fills the room; flowers embroidered along its edges, a swirling pattern of green and white. They’re lilies, I think. I remember our ancient carpet in Archway with things living in it. I don’t recall anyone ever vacuuming. I don’t think we even had a vacuum. I wriggle my toes in the deep, soft pile. It’s all so spotless. Beth probably has staff.

  There’s a photo on the coffee table of Beth and Ambrogio; its silver frame sparkles like it’s just been polished. They look like Brangelina or another golden Hollywood couple. Peroxide teeth, too-big smiles: they don’t look real. There’s a blue-and-yellow china vase hand-painted with lemons and frangipani. There’s a fireplace so clean I doubt it’s ever been used.

  “Here we are,” says Beth, gliding through the door and making me jump. She’s carrying a silver tray, which she sets down on the table. She takes two little teapots, two delicate china teacups, and two matching floral saucers and positions them symmetrically on the table before me. She pours the tea from individual teapots into individual teacups, as gracefully as a geisha. The tea trickles and tinkles prettily as it fills the cups. It’s positively ceremonial.

  “Is that color OK for you, Alvie,” she asks. “Not too weak?”

  “No, it’s fine,” I say.

  “Not too strong?”

  “No.”

  She sets down the teapot. This is it. Whatever it is she needs, here it comes. . . .

  “Would you like some sugar? I have white or brown. Don’t worry, it’s fair trade.”

  Did I look worried? “No, thank you,” I say.

  “Or I can get you some sweetener? There’s some stevia in the kitchen.”

  What the fuck is stevia? It sounds like an STI. “No, thanks,” I say.

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “I don’t want any.”

  I look around for the milk.

  “Can I have some milk?”

  “Oh, you don’t have milk with oolong.”

  “Oh.”

  Of course not. Silly me.

  “So,” I begin, “you had something to ask me?” But then I get distracted. Sidetracked, more like. Beth takes the cover off a cake stand, lifts the shiny silver dome to reveal the amazing confection beneath. There’s a cake with pastel-yellow cream and a pretty pattern in swirling pine nuts. The pine nuts look toasted, golden, delicious . . . the cream looks fluffy and light.

  Beth sees me drooling. “Torta della nonna. It’s my favorite. You’re going to love it.”

  She cuts a generous slice of cake and hands it to me on a dainty plate with a folded napkin and a tiny silver fork: the scent of lemons and sugar. The plate is painted with blossoms and rosebuds. The fork looks like an antique.

  “Aren’t you going to have any?” I ask, incredulous, when I see that it’s just me.

  “Oh no,” she says. “I’m on a diet: gluten-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free.”

  What the hell does she eat then? Air? I take my fork and stab at the cake.

  “Mmm,” I say.

  Beth smiles.

  “Told you.”

  She watches as I chew.

  I take another forkful, then another and another. Oh my God. I can’t get enough. Is it possible to have a taste-bud orgasm? I think I just did.

  “Can I have another slice?” I ask, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and licking my lips. That was good. Really good.

  Beth’s expression changes. Her face falls slack. Her lower lip begins to curl. . . .

  I stop chewing a mouthful of cake. Oh no, what have I done?

  “Alvie, you’re getting crumbs on the carpet.”

  Chapter Seven

  Alvie? Alvie? Are you OK?”

  I must have drifted off or glazed over. We’re sitting in the nursery, all sailing boats and tank engines, surrounded by toys and baby paraphernalia: a changing table, a cot, a shoe rack with matching pairs of blue booties, tiny and new. There’s a row of miniature cardboard books, Baby’s First A to Z. I feel like a giant in a Victorian doll’s house: I don’t belong.

  “Are you all right?” Beth asks, touching my arm. I pull away.

  “Yes.” No. I’m not all right. What does she want? What’s going on? She didn’t invite me here to play mummies and babies. I didn’t come here for a tea party.

  Ernie beams a big, stupid grin, blows a little bubble of saliva out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Ga, ga, ga,” he says, looking up. I study my nephew’s face.

  “I’m fine. It’s just . . .” Just what, Alvina? That he looks like you? I pick out the features on his tiny face: those are my eyes. That’s my nose, my mouth, and my chin. I’d recognize them anywhere. He looks like me when I was a baby. He could be my son.

  The pain floods from my gut like a freshly opened cut and I remember: the sting of the clinic’s disinfectant, the stench of bleach, the blank stare of the ceiling, suffocating curtains, too-white walls, an empty vase on the bedside table, the sounds of other people’s cries, shining needles, cardboard sick bowls, and the driving pain that drove me insane with nothing to show but the bite marks on my hands and the

  blood,

  blood,

  blood.

  It’s been eight years.

  It’s all her fault.

  “It’s just . . . he’s so beautiful,” I say at last, surprising myself. But he is; he’s angelic. Beth smiles; she knows.

  “Thank you,” she says proudly, running her fingers through his golden curls, planting a kiss on his cherubic head. Ernesto is gorgeous, like one of the baby models in the adverts on the Tube, like the sleeping boy in that painting in the hall. Big, blue eyes like drops of ocean. Ernie smiles up at me: that naïve kind of optimism that only children can do. His cheeks are round and pink as marshmallows: a life-size jellybean. Sugary. Sweet. I never told her about the pregnancy. She doesn’t know I miscarried. But ignorance is no excuse.

  “Do you want to hold him?”

  “What? No.” I am filled with panic.

  “Ernie, do you want to have a cuddle with your auntie Alvina?” Beth asks, picking him up and holding him toward me.

  “No, it’s OK, I’ve never really held—”

  “Don’t be silly, you’ll be fine. He likes you. I can tell.” She laughs. “Do you want to give him his bottle?”

  And he’s on my lap, so light, yet so plump. I grip him tight, my body rigid, terrified I’ll drop him or break him or worse. Ernie looks up at me, gurgling, giggling.

  “Ma, ma, ma.”

  He seems OK.

  I listen to him breathing, in and out, as shallow as a kitten, and smell his bubble-bath-scented hair. I blink back tears. It’s so unfair. This should be my baby. I never want to let him go.

  “Mama,” he says, reaching for Beth.

 
; “Aaah,” Beth says. “He wants his mummy.”

  “You take him,” I say, giving him back. “He’s yours, you take him.”

  Beth frowns.

  My cheeks are flushed. It’s far too hot. Has someone turned the heating on?

  “Ma, ma, ma.”

  It’s all her fault and I’ll never forgive her.

  “Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.”

  ◆

  “So what happened with your job?” she says, handing me the scissors to cut off the tags on my new bikini. It’s a black-and-red bandeau set from Prada with sparkling gemstones along the front. The scissors are nice and sharp.

  “Oh that . . . ?” Snip. “I was doing so well that a competitor found out about me.” Snip. “I was headhunted.” Snip. “Can you believe it?”

  “No way!” she says. “I didn’t know they headhunted poets.”

  “Loads more money. Company car.” I toss the scissors onto the bed.

  “Uh-huh? Who was that then?”

  “Who?” I say. I unzip my dress and peel it off: red lines on my flesh from where the seams have dug in.

  “The competitor?”

  “Erm . . .” I snap off my bra. “Esquire? The magazine. They needed a head poet.”

  She looks me up and down. I don’t think she buys it. “So you were fired then?”

  “Fired? No.” She watches me remove my underwear, eyes my bikini line. I turn away.

  “And what about your new place in London? How’s it going with your flatmates?”

  I leave my clothes in a pile on the floor, but Beth looks horrified, her lips pursed into an accusing line, so I fold them up neatly and place them all at the foot of the bed.

  “Graham and Pam? Oh . . . you know, they’re great,” I say. “More like family than friends. We really clicked, right from the start.” I step into the bikini bottoms, yank them halfway up my legs. Something crackles. The plastic bit’s still stuck in the crotch. I take them back off and rip it out.

  “Right . . . so you hate them then?” says Beth with a smirk.

  How does she do that? It’s like she can read my fucking mind. I look at the scissors. Round, black handles. Long silver blades. Glinting. Shining. Sparkling in the dazzling sunlight. Calling my name.

  “They’re . . . fine,” I say. I adjust my bikini, the straps digging into my flesh like a cheese wire. She doesn’t need to know they kicked me out.

  Beth’s in a teeny-weeny G-string bikini in pink-and-beige Missoni stripes. I hide my new bikini under a Louis Vuitton sarong and floppy straw hat. How can Beth and I be the same dress size, but I look fat?

  ◆

  We’re lying by the swimming pool soaking up the rays; I’m melting into my lounger like vanilla gelato. The sun is brutal; my skin’s already starting to singe despite the SPF 50 I slathered on inside. My knees have turned an alarming shade of red. I watch my sister grab her iPhone and punch in the PIN: 1996. Well, that’s easy to remember; it’s the year the Spice Girls released “Wannabe.” She writes someone a message with lots of x’s.

  A woman comes out onto the patio carrying a tray of vodka and iced limonatas. It’s the Absolut vodka I bought for Beth. Thank fuck for that, I’m beyond desperate. Beth hasn’t stopped talking for over an hour. I can’t take much more of this. The woman has dark eyes, curly black hair, and leathery brown skin. She smiles at me.

  “Mamma mia! But there are two Elisabettas!” she says, clapping her hands together and touching her lips with the tips of her fingers.

  Oh, here we go: the free entertainment, the freak show, the double act. The fucking point-and-stare routine. We ought to charge them by the minute. We’d both be millionaires (instead of just Beth).

  Beth laughs her signature carefree laugh.

  “Non ci credo; you both look the same!” says the lady.

  I don’t think so. She must be simple. Don’t they have twins in Italy?

  “Alvie, this is Emilia, our amazing nanny and housekeeper. Emilia, this is my sister, Alvina.”

  “Piacere,” says the woman, looking me up and down. I shift on the lounger. Hide under my hat.

  “All right,” I say.

  My sister has slaves? Of course she does. I’d have three slaves if I could afford it: one to cook my food, one to clean my house, and one to fan me in the garden with an enormous leaf; fuck me, it’s hot.

  “Does she live here?” I ask when Emilia has gone.

  “Goodness, no. She lives in the little pink cottage around the corner. The one with the hanging baskets by the door. She only works here from seven a.m. till nine p.m., six days a week.”

  “Oh. Is that all?” How on Earth does Beth cope?

  “I thought about having someone move in to help at night, you know, with all the baby stuff, but he’s such a good sleeper, I don’t really need it.”

  “Hmm.”

  All the baby stuff . . . God, she’s so lazy. She’s even outsourced being a mum. I mean, come on. How hard can it be? Octomom has eight kids, Beth’s only got one. It’s not like she’s got anything else to do, like work. No, working on her tan doesn’t count. Please don’t tell me she’s writing another novel. I can’t bring myself to ask.

  I slurp my limonata: cool, crisp citrus with a stiff vodka kick. I’m already contemplating a second. Emilia makes a mean vodka cocktail, I’ll give her that. Perhaps she really is amazing?

  “You speak English to her? Emilia?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Beth says.

  “You didn’t learn Italian?”

  Beth gives me a look. “No, what’s the point?”

  Told you: lazy.

  “Everyone speaks English. Anyway . . . I don’t want to stay here forever. . . .” She stops, as though she’s said too much.

  “Really? Why not? What’s wrong with it?” Seems perfectly all right to me. I watch the sunlight reflect off the surface of the pool, like a thousand shimmering diamonds.

  “Oh, nothing. I guess . . . the language never appealed. I prefer German.” She closes her eyes and reclines on the lounger. End of subject. Next thing I hear, they’ll be moving to Munich.

  It’s the first time Beth has stopped talking since I arrived. The alcohol in my bloodstream and the warmth caressing my back are sending me to sleep, when a high-pitched buzz blares from somewhere to the left of the garden. I crank open my eyelids. Beth’s already sitting up, poised to investigate. She springs from the sun lounger, a gazelle or flying squirrel, and sprints toward the noise. I heave myself up and haul myself after her across the lawn, wrapping the sarong around me as I go.

  A man with a chainsaw is cutting down a tree. It’s a nice chainsaw.

  “Hey, what’re you doing?” shouts Beth.

  He clearly isn’t the gardener. He continues to saw until the tree crashes down. It was a lemon tree. Now it’s firewood. The stench of burned petrol and citrus leaves. The man pulls off his Perspex goggles to reveal icy blue eyes, glacier-cool like Daniel Craig’s. He turns off the chainsaw and takes the cigarette from his mouth. He is naked from the waist up, tall, broad, and dripping with sweat. From the bulge in his cut-offs, I’d guesstimate eight inches. Certainly girth. He looks like he works out. He reminds me of Channing Tatum. (Damn, I should have brought that poster with me. I knew there was something . . .) He has a “kiss me” dimple in the middle of his chin, so perfect it looks Photoshopped. His dark-blond hair is more messy than tousled, scraped back from his forehead with a black Alice band: a little girlie, perhaps. But like Leonardo DiCaprio and premier league footballers, he somehow pulls it off.

  Who knew Beth kept sexy lumberjacks in her back garden? This was worth waking up for.

  “I told your husband it had to go. It was still here. Now it’s gone,” he says in a thick Italian accent. He is clearly a local. A local who didn’t like that tree.

  “Salvatore, you can’t just cho
p down other people’s trees,” says Beth.

  “I can. I did.”

  There’s no arguing with that.

  “Ambrogio’s going to be pissed off.”

  Salvatore takes a drag. He doesn’t look like he cares.

  “I told him, the tree is stealing my light. I need the light for my sculptures. Either he goes, or the tree goes. He should be happy it’s the tree.” He smiles; he’s cute: a rock star’s laid-back nonchalance. Hair on his chest. Expensive watch. He must be a successful artist if he can afford a Patek Philippe. He wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  We stand and stare at the tree. Then Salvatore sees me.

  “You two related?” He laughs, gesturing at us with his cigarette butt. Our eyes meet. He holds my gaze; it feels vulnerable and invasive at the same time. Beth is about to respond when Ambrogio runs out from the villa. Shouting.

  “Ma che cazzo hai fatto?” he yells across the garden. He looks a little red. “My father planted that tree! Merda, Salvatore, I’m sick of you and your fucking sculptures!”

  The men begin a shouting match in animated Italian. I have no idea what they’re saying, but it sounds intense. Beth and I wait for a while in the furnace heat and watch the show. The men compete for the most exaggerated hand gestures and deafening decibels, getting closer and closer until they’re practically fucking, screaming into each other’s faces, progressively more puce.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Beth says at last, rolling her eyes. She takes my hand and leads me back toward the villa. “Come on, let’s get dressed; I want to show you something special.”

  “Sure,” I say, not that she was asking. I bet this is it . . . the real reason she’s invited me.

  I would have preferred to watch the fight.

  Chapter Eight

  We plow through the heat till we reach the amphitheater. Posters of prima donnas advertise an opera; Verdi’s Nabucco has just been on. Ah, Nebuchadnezzar, the mad king of Babylon; wasn’t he the guy who exiled the Jews from their homeland in the Book of Daniel? I knew being forced to go to Sunday school every week for the best part of ten years would come in useful one day. It’s finally paid off.