Ben

by Cody Young

  “Come in,” said Mr Stein, rolling his eyes. He stood back and let Ben and Layla in, while Sylvia clapped her hands in glee, and said that the only thing better than them coming for Christmas would be them coming for Hanukkah, because it was sooner, and yes well, thinking about it they’d HAVE to come for Hanukkah. They’d just have to. Then she started rattling on to Layla about how Hanukkah wasn’t the same as Christmas – not really the same at all – just in case Layla’s understanding of Jewish traditions wasn’t up to speed. But it would be lovely to have them here for Hanukkah all the same.

  “Yes,” whispered Ben. “Because if we’re really unlucky – the two celebrations will be a week apart and then we’ll have to come down for both.”

  Layla looked back at him, and hoped her face didn’t convey a sense of shock.

  “Throw in the towel and move back in, son,” said Mr. Stein, and managed to steer the whole herd of them into a massive lounge with a fire blazing in the grate. “You and Layla can have your old room.”

  Ben tried to speak up. “Oh, yes, I was meaning to say about that…”

  Layla looked up at him, meaningfully. He hadn’t phoned ahead. She could tell.

  Mrs Stein – Sylvia – ran up to Layla with the grace and speed of a sixty-four year old ballet dancer and said, “I’ve made up the bed in there with fresh linen this afternoon, dear, and I hope you like lavender because the sheets are scented with those little lavender bags that Ruth helped me make last summer. Oh, I should have called to check – you’re not allergic to lavender or anything, are you?”

  Layla shook her head. No, the lavender wasn’t a problem. But she looked at Ben and silently begged him to tell his mother that the proposed sleeping arrangements would have to be changed.

  “Um, mother, I forgot. Sorry. It’s separate rooms… at this stage.”

  “Separate rooms, dear?” she said, as if this was almost unheard of in living memory.

  “Yes,” Ben nodded, stiffly, and began to colour up. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “But I thought you were living with Layla,” his mother insisted. “Didn’t you say you were living together, dear, in your flat in Richmond? Or have you had an argument or something? Because if you’ve had some kind of little tiff then I think the absolute best thing in the world would be−”

  “No,” said Ben with sudden force and determination. “We haven’t had an argument, mother. But we’ve never had sex.”

  And then there was silence. For a full four seconds.

  “Ah,” she said, with a stern look at Ben as if this was a major oversight on his part. “I quite understand. And I must make myself scarce now for just a few minutes while I make a few tiny adjustments to everything upstairs.” She darted towards the doorway and when she got there she turned and said, “You’ll have to manage without me for a few minutes. Go ahead and talk amongst yourselves!”

  Then she pirouetted out of the door, and Mr Stein smiled and said, “And now that you’ve left us, my sweet, that might actually be possible.”

  Ben’s Room

  Later, Layla followed Ben up the stairs to see where she would be staying. A small ceramic sign on the door said ‘Ruth’s Room’ with tiny flowers painted underneath the words.

  Layla opened the door for Ben, because he was carrying the bags. He dumped hers on the bed, in the middle of the pink candlewick bedspread.

  “My sister’s room,” he said. “Still just as it was. Ruth’s married now. No kids yet, much to my mother’s disappointment.”

  It was a beautiful room. Large and square, with a big dressing table set out with dolls and hair brushes and perfume bottles. In front of it was a pink, squishy seat where a young girl could sit and do her hair all day if she wanted to. Over on the other side, there was a beautiful doll’s house. And round the edge, there were lots of cupboards all built in and painted white with curly gold handles.

  Layla looked around the girly room in surprise. “She’s a lawyer now, isn’t she? Your sister?”

  “That’s right. Criminal law. Defence cases.”

  Layla thought it was strange that a girl who’d had a childhood full of dolls and pink powder puffs would want to immerse herself in the grimy world of crime and punishment. But the world is full of paradoxes. Like Ben and me.

  Layla smiled and walked over to the doll’s house – an impressive three storey mansion in painted plywood, with balconies and painted flowers around the door. She put a finger on the catch in the middle, and looked at Ben. “Can I?”

  He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  It opened up like a cupboard with double doors at the front and it was all beautifully set out with the little doll family living in silent elegance inside. The baby was in its little crib. The mother and father dolls were in the well-appointed doll-sized sitting room. Father doll was reading a miniature newspaper. Mother doll was sitting, hands folded in her lap, gazing into the fireplace, where a tiny fire of cellophane sweet papers glowed.

  The junior dolls – a boy and a girl – were upstairs. The boy was lying on his bed, with his little wooden arms folded behind his head, and the girl doll was in the bath tub, with lots of curly paper shavings to represent the bubbles.

  Layla marvelled at it. Not only was it the most elaborate and expensive dolls house she had ever seen. It was what it represented, really. A family life so poised and perfect that no one could fault it.

  She stood up, and found that she was looking out of a double-glazed window and across the garden to the paddock beyond. Where two rather ancient ponies were standing, looking at her.

  Ben crossed the room to stand with her by the window. “That’s Jeremiah and Geronimo. Acquired at different times. For Ruth. She was pony mad at one stage.”

  Layla nodded. “Are they friendly?”

  “Yes. We can go and feed them later, if you like. They don’t give rides any more. They’re retired. They just eat hay and carrots.”

  “She was a very lucky girl, your sister,” she said. “It’s a lovely room.”

  “Yes. It was a good place to grow up. Do you want to see my room, now?”

  She turned to catch the look in his eye, and he smiled, almost shyly. So she said, “Okay, if you like.”

  “Yes. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  His room was different. It was more modern. The walls were painted a deep burgundy red. A surprising colour for a young man’s room. But then, maybe he didn’t choose it. Or maybe he did, since it was the colour of a good French wine. He had a desk with a chrome angle-poise lamp. Some black speakers connected to some kind of sound system. And an ashtray. Up above, a bookshelf that held science books, mainly. ‘Today’s Chemistry’ and ‘Human Biology’ and a book about keeping goldfish. He had very little fiction – Sherlock Holmes, Jaws – the Movie, and a Biggles book with a torn yellow cover. There were three model aeroplanes hanging on strings tied to drawing pins pushed into the ceiling. They’d been glued by hand (presumably Ben’s) but left unpainted – as if he’d never had the time. Apart from that there was very little evidence of childhood at all. Just a whole lot of binders with ‘Sixth Form Homework’ written on the side.

  “I spent hours at this desk,” he admitted. “Sometimes four or five hours a night. I was getting into Med School if it killed me.”

  She smiled. “Well. You did it. You’re very clever.”

  “Oh, my father thought a career in medicine was definitely second fiddle.”

  “To what?”

  “To joining him in the family business.”

  “Which is wine, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, he imports wine. On quite a large scale. He’s still running the business even though he’s well past retiring age. I used to work with him in the school holidays. But we argued. And apparently, I have no head for business,” Ben smiled. “Family joke. That’s why I had to be a doctor.”

  “That was lucky for me,” she said, and she put her arms around him. “Very lucky.”

  He caught her in the embrace and kis
sed her hair. “I hope they don’t scare you away. My parents. And I hope they’ll make you welcome.”

  “Oh, Ben. They’re not scary. You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  No, she thought. It wasn’t his people they needed to worry about. It was hers.

  * * *

  The Steins had a large and rather chilly dining room with a massive grey stone fireplace in the centre of one wall. It was the fireplace that made it chilly – because even when a fire burned in the grate, it seemed to draw all the warm air out of the room and up into the chimney. Sylvia set the table while her husband opened the wine.

  “Ooh, it’s bitter in here, Morrie,” Sylvia complained. “It would have been cosier in the kitchen. I can’t think why we had to eat in here.”

  But Ben knew why. Because his father liked to hold court in here whenever he had guests. Because he wanted to wield the electric carving knife like a mad butcher and bring out bottle after bottle of fine wine. He hadn’t yet broken it to Morrie that he was on the wagon for a month in a bid to win Layla’s devotion.

  “Sit down, sit down. Take the weight off. Please, Layla, sweetie, make yourself at home.” Sylvia went back into the kitchen to fetch the first course. Moments later she called out to Morrie for help, leaving Ben and Layla in the dining room alone.

  Sitting on the mantelpiece was a set of little glowing carriages, drawn by reindeer with red and orange lights inside them. “What are they?” asked Layla.

  “Christmas decorations. Mother must have started early.”

  Layla went over there to get a closer look. “Aren’t they cute?”

  “Don’t tell her that or she’ll get out Mr Sminky.”

  Layla touched one of the little carriages. “They remind me of the Lord Mayor’s Show. My dad used to take me to see it, before he got sent down.”

  “We’ll go together next year.” He smiled at her, and pulled out a chair. “Sit down, darling.”

  So she sat. She seemed terrified of breaching etiquette. She looked nervously at the old-fashioned silver cutlery set out and looked up at Ben for advice. “What’s this?”

  “A fish knife.”

  “And this?”

  “A grapefruit knife.”

  “And this one?”

  “Bread and butter.”

  “I’m never going to remember.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said and sat down beside her. “They won’t care which knife you use. They will, however, grill you all night about all parts of your life. So if there’s anything you don’t want to tell them – now’s the moment to dream up your alibi.”

  “Where did we meet? I’m worried about that one.”

  “The pub on the corner. Like we told your father.”

  “Okay,” she nodded.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Layla, did that pub have a name?”

  “Of course it had a name. It was called the Painted Lady.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “The Painted Lady? Seriously?”

  “Tell them I met you getting tested for STDs, if you think that sounds better.”

  He laughed. “Um, no. We’ll stick to the Painted Lady. So, for the rest of my life I’m going to be telling half-truths about picking you up in a pub called the Painted Lady.”

  She nodded and then she blushed and looked up at him with a kind of puzzled surprise on her face. And he realized what an extraordinary admission he’d made. For the rest of my life.

  He stared down at his own elaborate set of silver cutlery, and felt the blush rising up his own neck. He had actually said that. For the rest of my life. “Yes. Well. That was a little presumptuous of me.”

  She gave a very shy smile, and reached for his hand. “It’s okay. It was a nice thing to say.”

  He nodded. “Uncharted territory for both of us, though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Very scary.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Layla. I mean it.”

  “I know. It’s just that… we’ve got a long way to go…”

  Sylvia came in with a tray which she set on the sideboard. “Now, what are you two lovebirds talking about while Morrie and I are out of the way?”

  “Secrets and lies, mother. Secrets and lies.”

  “I don’t care if you lie to her, Benjy. As long as you keep her sweet. Pink grapefruit salad to start?”

  She handed out the little glass bowls of food and Morrie blustered in with a wine bottle and started to pour for everyone. When Ben put a hand over the top of his glass and shook his head, Morrie’s eyebrows rose high above his bifocals. “What’s all this? No Fumé Blanc? It’s been aged in oak, Ben. It’s a wonderful wine.”

  “I’m on a new health kick. No cigarettes. No Fumé Blanc.”

  “What about French Bordeaux? We were going to have some of that, later.”

  “French Bordeaux?” Ben let out a kind of agonised groan. He looked at Layla. “Tell me I’m allowed to have a glass of Bordeaux?”

  “I’ll tell you anything you like. But you will have broken your promise, Ben. And why should I keep mine if you’re going to break yours?” She looked at him. Waiting to see what he would do.

  There was a long pause, while he thought about this. Then, he cleared his throat. “It strengthens willpower to stick to one’s resolutions. So no wine tonight, thanks.”

  Morrie smiled wryly. “Not tonight, Josephine.”

  Mrs Stein looked like she was witnessing a biblical miracle. She and her husband exchanged a strange look.

  Layla picked up her fish knife and started attacking her grapefruit.

  Dinner was lovely. Mrs Stein was an excellent cook, and Morrie was a genial host. Ben had always envied his parents ability to make anyone feel at home here. Layla was sparkling like a diamond by the end of the evening, and he thought she looked like she’d always belonged here. She was as much a part of it as the glittering chandelier that hung above the table, or the graceful fir trees that stood in the darkening vistas beyond the glass windows, framed by heavy looped-back curtains.

  After dinner and coffee and the chance of Cognac which Ben resisted like a Catholic martyr, they went back into the sitting room and sat by the fire. They spent the rest of the evening putting more logs on the blaze and swapping stories. Layla sat on the floor like a little girl, although to Ben she looked every inch a woman, in the flickering golden light. She was pensive and gazed into the flames and he wondered if she wished she wasn’t sleeping in Ruth’s room tonight. But when she caught him looking at her, she flushed in that way that made her barely a schoolgirl again.

  Ben’s father was telling the same awful story he always told to illustrate Ben’s lack of business acumen – which everyone but Ben seemed to find absolutely hilarious. And all the time Ben kept sitting there, looking at Layla. There’s only one deal I need to close. Layla. I must have Layla.

  Fatherly Advice

  Sunday was a leisurely day that began late and babbled along at like a country stream. Sylvia told them at breakfast time that she’d invited not one but two sets of neighbours over for dinner, so her friends could meet Layla and see how lovely she was. Ben wondered if this was too much pressure – but like a newly-added member of the royal family, Layla seemed to take it in her stride. After breakfast Ben took her on a grand tour of the tiny village, pointing out the school he’d attended and the church he had never been inside. Layla said she hadn’t been out of London much – except to places like Southend and Clacton Pier. The Fens would seem like another world to her, Ben realized, seeing it for the first time through her eyes. Flat fields, ploughed bare and brown, under a giant sky, with nothing to see for miles and miles.

  “It’s so empty,” she said. “Weren’t you lonely?”

  “Always. Until I met you.”

  They returned with a sack of carrots to feed to the elderly ponies, Geronimo and Jeremiah. And Ben watched her leaning over the fence, laughing as the ponies nuzzled the palm of her hand.

  “I need you,” he admitted.

  There wa
s a companionable silence while she patted Jeremiah, who flicked his ears as if he was ticklish. She looked at him, shyly. “Maybe you do.”

  * * *

  Later, Ben sensed his father wanted a word alone with him. Mr Stein caught his eye and nodded in the direction of the conservatory, and then the two men sloped off to get a quiet moment alone. The conservatory – a bright room with a tiled terracotta floor and lots of pot plants – was a place where Ben always used to go and smoke, and just being in there brought on a craving of such power and intensity that he really thought he’d have to run to the car and go and buy some. He ran a hand over his face, murmuring “Cravings pass, I can do this, cravings pass…”

  But he knew if it wasn’t for Layla – he’d already be driving through the gates and down to the village.

  “Are you alright, son?” said Morrie, with a worried look on his face. He raised a mock-sincere eyebrow and asked, “Or have I interrupted a moment of prayer?”

  “Of course not. I’m trying to kick smoking.”

  “I noticed. Not improving your temper, is it?”

  “Not really,” Ben admitted. “But I’m hoping it will bring other benefits.”

  “One of them being the lovely Layla.”

  Ben smiled. “You’re as sharp as a tack, Dad.”

  “I don’t know. Separate beds, no smokes and you didn’t touch the Bordeaux, either. I’m stunned, Benjamin, by all this clean living you’re doing. You’re mother thinks you must have joined a cult.”

  “Yeah.” Ben sat down heavily in a wicker chair by the window, and his gaze came to rest on an ashtray right there beside him, just dying to be filled. “Oh, this is awful.”

  “And Layla asked you to do all of this?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly. Look, I’ve been meaning to kick the cigarettes for ages – Layla just encouraged me, that’s all. As for the booze – I got pretty drunk on our first date and that was nearly the end of it. The silly girl convinced herself that I’m an alcoholic, so I’m laying off for a month to prove her wrong.”